Just Keep Going
by meholstein
Summary: What would being abandoned on an entire planet do to someone? A window into Mark's emotional state on Mars. A sincere attempt to stay true to the real-life health effects of solitary isolation. tw: suicide, dissociation, hallucinations. Find more Watney fun at thewatneytriangle.
1. Chapter 1

Mark Watney  
Sol 6

I'm flying through the air, antennae already through my side, burning a hole in me. My ears pop, almost instantly, and I accept my face. This is how I end. Exploring the galaxy. I'm happy with that.

My last thought, as I watch Johanssen reaching out for me, is that I love the crew and I hope they make it home all right.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 6

But then, the next morning, I'm not dead. It's light out, there is a really fucking loud alarm blaring in my ear, and I'm almost entirely buried in sand. That antennae is still shoved into my side, still piercing right through me.

My first emotion, of all things, is pissed. I feel gypped, as if I was supposed to be a martyr for humanity and instead I just have a fucking metal rod in my side. I wish I'd just died properly, painlessly, hence the deep and profound desire to just fucking die.

The feeling passed, because I realized that if I was here, my crew probably was still here, and they'd patch me up and finish the mission. As soon as I had some anesthetics and some stitches it wouldn't be so bad. My injury was nothing to scrub over. I just had to let them know where I am.

It's kind of weird, really, that they haven't already found me. My suit has a homing mechanism.

This is the first thing that puts a sinking feeling in my gut.

Maybe when the communications array came free, they stopped working. I'm not sure how they work, but I know a lot depends on the comm array laying beside me.

I stand up, not wanting to yank out the antenna just yet because it would breach my suit, and of _course_ it's fucking connected to the satellite dish. I cut myself free and start to climb the hill, trying to call the team on the radio. It isn't going through. Maybe my suit is the thing that's busted, which makes sense considering an entire satellite dish slammed into it.

I crested the hill, feet locked in the sand, and didn't immediately process it.

The MAV landing struts are standing empty.

Why was the frame empty? Did it tip?

I stare a couple more seconds.

Wordlessly, it sinks in.

My first instinct is to sink to my knees, into the rusty sand dune, and let go.

My knees buckle. I almost give in.

I know that if I fall to the ground now, I'll never get up again. I'll just fade away. I don't even need to think about it to know that nobody will ever know what really happened. Nobody will think that I was too far away from the satellite, nobody will be able to see my footprints in the sand. I'll just kneel into this dusty hill, and die.

Time slows, then stands still.

I look at the scenery, standing on the Martian sand dune. Silent, wild wind blows sand tornadoes in the distance. The mountains tower beautifully, taller than anything on earth.

Ultimately, I don't want to die from oxygen oversaturation laying on a rusty sand dune, so I'll at the very least make it to the Hab. Instead of folding, I drag my knee forward and step. Then another.

I try not to think. My entire trek back to the Hab is punctuated with thoughts about saying goodbye. What I would say. If I could.

The world moves before me in a blur. The airlock opens, air hissing out, blaring alarms, but none of it reaches my ears.

Stitching myself up is a fairly mechanical affair. I almost don't know why I'm doing it. Just to give myself the option, I guess. If I don't, I'm going to die quickly and painfully from blood loss or an infection. I don't want my last hours to be highlighted by radiating infection pain.

But in the same drawer as the analgesics are syringes of morphine, enough to kill a horse, already in the vial. They're sealed with little plastic caps that can be ripped off easily in emergencies.

I don't take one, not immediately. But I can't quite bring myself to pull my hand away, either.

I look up out the window, which, when we set up the Hab, we positioned to have a view of the MAV. The landing struts are still empty.

That's when the coherent thought finally occurs to me.

They left. The crew is gone.

They must think I'm dead. I'm alone. I have no way to contact them. The math does itself in my head, without my consent, as fast as thought. I have food for around 300 days. But after 300 days, I'll starve to death. I have no way to escape. The only other MAV is 3200km away, and it doesn't have enough fuel, and I just can't get that far, and even if I could the Hermes has probably left and there's no one for me to get _to_.

I grab the syringe out of the drawer, cool in and smooth in my hand as I walk over to the window with the view of the MAV. The morphine is clear in the vial. It smells like space equipment and antiseptic from where the antenna went through my body. My hands trace every curve of the glass, body suddenly aware that these moments could be my last.

24 hours ago, I was with the Ares III, living my lifelong dream of being an astronaut, friends surrounding me, finally finally _finally_ fulfilled in life.

Now, I'm considering suicide.

I didn't even get to enjoy the full duration of the mission. We were 6 sols in and most of them had been spent on _setup_. I worked my whole adult life for this when really, I was just being sent here to die. Another me would be angry, but there's nothing in me anymore. I'm dead.

I say it out loud. "Mark Watney died on Sol 6." That's what they're all saying, on the Hermes, in Houston. Probably in the news; it's a big deal when an astronaut dies. Hey, I guess I get to be famous after all.

Seeing _it_ standing there, empty, is perverse. Unholy. Human eyes aren't meant to see that. It's against the martian mountains, and there's something artistic about it.

Never have I been a philosophical person. My botany peers in college wanted the New World Order, and my peers in the masters programs came from philosophy undergraduates who were full of 'deep quotes' and always trying to ask me what I thought the meaning of life was. Up until now, it all seemed like pointless navel gazing.

But staring at the empty landing struts, the martian tornadoes in the background, a lethal dose of morphine in my hand, I understand why it matters.

What was the fucking meaning of this?

 _There's no fucking meaning, Mark. There's nothing out there. There's no meaning to any of it. You lived, you died. That's all._

The empty landing struts are almost poetic. Humanity has left this place, and here are their leftovers, destined to remain undisturbed forever. I now understand how all those Egyptian relics were lost to time, how entire cities could get completely buried in the sand. Here I am, being buried with them.

My hand grips the syringe of morphine. The sand is going to bury me here, my final resting place a dusty tomb. I'm dying in this Hab, sand will flood into it and I'll be erased.

I turn to look around the Hab, imagining time ravaging it, dust seeping into the cracks and papers being blown around. Eventually it's buried, buried with me inside. Where do I lay? In my cot, with my hands folded? In the center, because it's my tomb? I don't want to decompose. If I breached the Hab at the end, I would remain undisturbed, just like the Egyptians _tried_ to do with their mummification. But it would actually work for me, and an entire planet would be my pyramid. Suck on that, Pharaohs.

My grip tightens around the vial.

I've never been one to give up. I've always thought 'if I were diagnosed with cancer, I'd fight it,' and I _would_. But this is different. This isn't just cancer, this is terminal cancer, no chance of survival, 100% chance of excruciating pain. Just starvation, pain, suffocation, death. There's literally nothing to be done. There's no one here to stick around for.

My food will last me 300 more days, but do I really want them?

No, best to just get it over with. I'm not one to give up, but I'm not one to delay the inevitable, either.

This doesn't even feel feel like giving up. I'm not in control at all as my thumb moves against the injection slide. I'm already dead. I am the living dead, because I am dead to my crew and I am dead to the world. Mark Watney died on Sol 6, and the guy who is alive right now is just his ghost, drifting around on Mars for 300 more days before he disappears, and no one will ever know.

I prick my fingertip with the needle, not enough to bleed, but enough to know how sharp the syringe is. I press my fingertip into it, feeling the pain as it separates my skin.

It feels like a dream. Who am I really leaving behind? My parents have each other, I have no wife and children, and that crew are my only real friends. They'll move on, they're already moving on. I don't need to wonder what they'll do if I die, because I'm already dead, fading away.

Still, I'm wondering, what was the fucking point?

I didn't put clothes back on over my boxers since I was alone and in pain, so I merely have to reach down for the needle to drag across the skin on my thigh. I raise the syringe in the air experimentally, wondering what it would be like to thrust the plunger down into my leg, to press my thumb down and release the morphine.

I worked for ten years and traveled 140 million miles to get here. My eyes linger on the sight I worked so hard for.

The martian landscape is breathtaking, alien and beautiful. If this was my last moment, well, it wasn't such a bad one.

I feel my thumb press down ever so slightly, feel the pressure against the slide increase ever so slightly. Fear jumps into my throat but I don't notice, so disconnected am I from my body.

But something else, just as uncontrollable, stays my hand.

Hope.

Faint hope. And boy, do I mean faint. If the Hermes came back right now (which I doubt they can do because of fuel requirements), and I _somehow_ managed to make a rover go the 3200km to Schiaparelli crater, _and_ put the life support in it, and survived long enough for it to make fuel, I could use their MAV to get back. Or I could wait four years for Ares IV, and go back with them. Could leave some sort of message to them, write huge letters in the sand, tell them to only send 5 people instead of 6 so I can go back with them.

The chances of this… ridiculously slim. But slim odds are better than none.

And if I just die now, what was the fucking point?

Besides, I can always kill myself tomorrow. I have 300 more days left on my ticker, after all.

I set down the syringe gently, as if it's a loaded gun, right in the center of the table.

Suddenly I realize my heart is pounding and I shove myself away from the table on the wheely chair, stumbling out of it and towards my bunk. All I want to do is lay down in that bunk and forget about the hole that's torn in my side, forget about the morphine that sits on the center of the table, forget about the fact that I've been abandoned here and never going home again, stare at the wall and get lost in my thoughts until maybe this isn't happening to me anymore.

On my way to the cot I see the habJournal desk, and I slow. NASA will probably never see this footage, but maybe some space colonists a hundred years from now will find this wreckage and be able to get the ancient computers working. I'll never see earth again, my family will never know what happened, no one can talk to me, but I can talk to the people who discover this footage, dozens or hundreds of years from now. Maybe my Wikipedia page will be rewritten, biggest surprise scientific discovery of the decade.

I can't write a last letter to anyone I know, but I can write a last letter to _someone_.

I log in, hit "record," and the camera flares to life.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 7

I woke up today, and found that I don't really want to kill myself.

I have enough food to last me a year. That's a pretty decent amount of time. If nothing else, I have a solid fucking year to do research about Mars.

I can't get communication reliable enough to talk to NASA back and forth, but I could eventually reach them. I can put the results on a constant broadcast from the Hab, and maybe Ares IV would be able to find it, or maybe SETI would pick it up or who knows what. That would advance science far more than any thirty sol trip could. So, even though I never get to see my mom and dad again, at least my death here could count for something.

Honestly, taking a look at all my equipment, food is really the only problem. Water, shelter, medicine, nutrition, all taken care of. I've got an unbelievable amount of spare parts because I'm a crew of one, instead of a crew of six. Other things will become problems when they break, but not completely unmanageable problems. And it's only got to last me, one person, up to 300 days, so it doesn't matter.

I've even got an oblique goal: survive until Ares IV. It's not much of a goal, seeing as it's almost completely hopeless, but I have to try.

I told the log "if they don't cancel the program," but I know damn well they're going to hold the Ares IV program back. That's what they do every time a bad O-ring kills everyone on board. But I'm going to be there at the scheduled arrival date anyways, on the slim-to-none chance it proceeds on schedule. Their MAV is already there, so at the very least I can use it to communicate to NASA. I'd eat their rations, but they won't be delivered for years, it wouldn't be enough to keep me alive, and I don't want to compromise their mission anyways.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 8

I've only been alone on Mars one day, but already I have a brand new morbid side.

One of the first things I do is pull out a telescope and point it at the sky, looking for the Hermes. Soon I won't be able to see it with a telescope, so the morbid part of me hops right on that. It's not difficult to find, since it's currently closer to Mars than a satellite and also four or five times as large. But it's still a tiny speck in the sky, like a faraway airplane.

I stare at it, seeing no motion, but knowing it's rocketing away. I don't look away, even when my eyes begin to burn.


	2. Chapter 2

Mark Watney  
Sol 10

God, am I so _bored_ of shoveling dirt.

That said, there's no point stopping. If I'm not shoveling dirt I'm just sitting in the hab, probably watching 70s TV or staring at the walls. I'm equally bored of that, so I might as well be useful if each passing second feels even more boring than my general education lectures during my bachelors program.

Oh my _god_ , this dirt is heavy. I'm so bored of shoveling dirt. Okay, it's not _that_ heavy, 0.4g and all, but after doing this for five weeks straight my muscles are just protesting on principle.

It's also staring at me, out of the corner of my vision. The base of the MAV.

Suddenly, there's nothing inside me anymore, just a sudden and brutal emptiness that is more complete than the vacuum of space.

I look down hurriedly, hiding it from my vision. I hate seeing the landing struts.

But Mars is turning me into a maudlin son of a bitch, so I look up at it again.

In my masters degree, I ended up friends with a lot of people with philosophy bachelors degrees. Philosophy bachelors, if they didn't become doctors, became mathematicians, and everyone in any scientific pursuit somehow ended up friends with a mathematics candidate. They annoyed the shit out of me, really, constantly talking about nietzsche and the double-sided hope that death provided or whatever.

But the sight of that metal frame against the desolate red dirt of Mars suddenly makes me appreciate what they were talking about. I can't yet think about this directly; can't think about how the sight of that empty frame against the martian landscape is something no human eyes were ever meant to see. I can't think about it at all, actually, but my body betrays me and instead feels the wrongness and abandonment for me, uncomfortable and tearing and searing in my chest so badly it makes me feel _wrong_ inside.

I can't look anymore, I thrust my shovel into the dirt, feel my weakening arms protest the motion, and try to lose myself in the pain of physical labor gone on too long.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 12

If I stay busy shoveling this dirt, my mind doesn't think as much. That's good, because the only things I can think about are that empty landing strut a couple hundred meters away, and the Hermes barreling towards earth without me.

I keep shoveling the dirt, because I have to.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 13

They're probably holding my funeral today. 7 days after my death, after all.

They're all mourning me, moving on. I can feel myself fading away already.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 14

I hate mealtimes. Every meal feels like I'm one day closer to death.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 16

It's thanksgiving. My parents are gathering, mourning my death with my family. I picture the crew sitting silently in the rec room, and I'd _like_ to think they're upset over my death.

I can't stop wondering… who cared?

Who didn't?

The image of my mother crying over a picture of me is enough to inspire me to survive, giving me energy as I shovel more dirt into the Hab. I can't let her son die before her.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 17

I wish my dog Buzz was here. That would make the tedium of shoveling all this fucking dirt a lot better, if I could at least talk to and hang out with Buzz while it was happening. Sure, he could only be inside the Hab and I wouldn't want to condemn Buzz to this misery with me, but I can pretend. We can pretend Buzz doesn't need an EVA suit, and he would get a kick out of the gravity.

He probably wouldn't, actually. He's kind of a dumb dog, and reduced would probably frighten him more than trampolines do.

Buzz is also getting on in years. He's probably going to be dead by the time I get back.

Hang on for me, Buzz, and I'll hang on for you too.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 22

Somewhere along the line I accidentally looked up, and the flat horizon of desert caught my eye. The desert is endless and empty, empty past the horizon, around the world and circling all the way back, so fucking empty.

My chest suddenly hurts, a tearing emptiness opens up as I picture it.

I'm so alone.

I'm the only one here, all alone. I'm the most alone anyone has ever been.

I'm supposed to be shoveling dirt, but I stood up for a minute and the horizon caught my eye, and the hopelessness of my situation hit me like a truck again.

What the fuck does it matter if I spend a minute staring at the horizon. There's only so much work I can do in a day, and after the potatoes are planted there's just going to be a lot of me laying around and waiting anyways.

I think of that crappy quote, "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you," and think yeah, that crappy cliche quote is true after all.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 27

You know, twenty sols ago, depressurizing the airlock made me nervous as hell. Feeling the air going down, realizing that I was stepping into a brutal wasteland where one tear in my suit would kill me dead instantly, gave me a bit of nerves.

Oh, I'm still aware that one tear will kill me dead, but now I just don't really give a shit.

And on the flip side, being outside was so exciting. Every ten seconds I'd think "oh my God! I'm on Mars!" grin ridiculously, and tell someone about it. We all felt that way. It was obnoxious.

Now it's just… nothing. I don't care that I'm on Mars. Actually, I'd give anything to be anywhere but here. It's boring, utterly boring, because it's the last fucking thing I'll ever see.


	3. Chapter 3

Mark Watney  
Sol 33

I'm about to light the hydrazine on fire. I am videotaping the NASA log now, actually, recording all the science for posterity.

I suppose after 33 days of being a dead man walking, the idea that I might actually become dead isn't so disturbing. One, it's not for sure that I'll become dead. Two, I'm already dead, so any days I'm not dead are just bonus-days. Three, it's a lot less pathetic to die by explosion than to die by drug overdose. Four (and this is most important), once you let go of your feeble attachment to life, you can do a lot of cool science.

What I'm about to do, with the hydrazine, there is about a 0% chance anyone alive would get to do this, no matter how fancy the protection. I'm just going to create water out of nothing. I'm literally going to make it rain, inside a structure the size of an apartment. Indoors. Naturally. That's pretty damn cool, and no one on earth is doing _that_.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 34

You know, NASA sent all these alarms so that we could know when shit is about to go wrong. But the alarms have been blaring for so long now (because of the humidity and the heat) that I'm growing used to them.

That small fact, of course, caused an existential crisis.

The mission critical alarms from NASA are the scariest thing anyone should be able to imagine. It means that the endless vacuum of space has finally caught up to you, and you're about to die in a fire-free explosion. Or worse, suffocate in your spacesuit. It's the worst death I can imagine for anyone, and yet that reality is my constant companion.

These _are_ mission critical alarms, the ones blaring overhead while I type this. I've grown used to them. It means I've grown used to death hanging over my head like an executioner just waiting for the signal. I've already had my last meal, my head is on the chopping block, and we're all just sitting around fucking waiting. But it's Sol 34, and I'm not dead yet, so that has to count for something.

In fact, I'm actually doing okay. I have water, I have tubers, I have soil. I've got so much water I have to fill a spacesuit with it. I won't go on, though, because I'm cultivating a coping strategy called 'you can't be upset by death if you never had a future anyways.' In other words, Don't Think About The Future, Mark.

Today is good enough. I can eat food without feeling like I'm one step closer to death every time I do.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 38

So I filled the Hab with hydrogen and turned it into a bomb. I've got a plan to move the potatoes and burn the hydrogen, but it's an idiotic plan. Really, truly idiotic.

Mars must think it's funny. "Oh, Mark finally got something to go right, let's fuck it up for him." I'm saying it out loud, so that I don't lose my ability to talk. I'm not going to see another human for four years, so it's up to me to make sure all my facial muscles still work. That's my bullshit justification and I'm sticking to it.

Again, Mars must think this is just great. One man's feeble fight against the lifeless dust bowl. I said it while I was shoveling dirt, but I didn't know what I was talking about. That was just Mars, being it's dusty self, nothing new. This? Fuck you, Mars.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 40

There must be a God out there, because an explosion in the Hab definitely should have killed me. It's NASA's worst case scenario, after all. But nope. Somehow, stubbornly, _still_ , I'm alive.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 41

The log entry I recorded for NASA makes it sound like I was just doing my tests, going on my merry way, making sure the Hab was okay. I was not.

My hands were shaking as I ran the computer system that checked the Hab canvas. It may be holding for now, but there could be a weakness or tear that would turn into a breach in even the slightest sandstorm. If the Hab breaches even once, all my crops die and I'm a dead man all over again. My entire body trembled when the Hab canvas came back fine.

It was the same for the oxygenator; I kept my work-face on, but that didn't stop my hands from shaking as I ran the test. The more tests came back fine, the less I shook.

It's not that I care about dying. It's that I don't want to be where I was Sol 6. A walking dead man, no hope. I'd rather die than go back to that.

But as I look down between my feet, my heart sinks. If that bacteria is gone, I'm back to where I was 37 sols ago; no food and no salvation.

I pick up some dirt between my fingertips, because there is no point being more formal about taking this sample. I throw it on a slide, and grab a couple more slides. Sitting down at the lab, I take a couple of quick, deep breaths, like a football player right before the playoffs.

Never one to draw things out, I force my head over the microscope.

Almost immediately, I see bacteria swimming around on my slide.

I lift my head up from the microscope, squeezing my eyes shut with relief. I'm blinking back watery eyes. Oh, my god, my hands are shaking even worse now but I don't care, because everything is fucking _okay_.

Mom, Dad, Buzz, I _might_ still make it home to you.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 46

I thought it would be fun. The first man to celebrate Christmas on Mars!

It's not.


	4. Chapter 4

Mark Watney  
Sol 58

I'm laying in bed, perfectly still. My chest hurts, my legs hurt, everything hurts.

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I whisper to myself, chest blooming in pain. Just make it through tonight. You can kill yourself tomorrow.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 59

I've come up with a massively stupid plan to heat the rover on my overland journey, and it involves the RTG.

Before, my near-suicidal plans didn't bother me, because I had no attachment to living. But I've been alive 59 Sols now, and something about me is proud of that fact. We were only meant to stay here 31 Sols, and I've almost doubled the expected trip time. I'd like to see how long I can ride this train, so the suicidal nature of hanging out with the RTG is bothering me because it will ruin my streak.

It's not a genuine concern for my own health or safety, but it's a mildly compelling facsimile in the absence of one.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 60

It's kind of fucked up that life on Mars has become somewhat regular.

It's been weeks since anything tried to kill me, and there's not that much to do in the Hab. Sometimes I try and putter around with science, but mostly I just laze about watching tv, eating half rations where I can. I haven't been this unemployed since after I graduated my bachelors program.

I mean… I haven't thought about my mom and dad at all this past week. Life before Sol 6 is fading into the background, like it's just some life I used to live, and now I live here. Not that I like here; even with it's regularity, it's hellish. There's shit in between my toes, under my toenails, and I swear to god I can feel the dirt building up on my balls no matter how careful I am to wear underwear. It's disgusting. But it's my new life, and somehow I just don't notice it as much anymore.

I'm desperate to get back to earth, no doubt about it. But I'm only 60 days into this 1041 sol adventure, and already it's taken on a regularity of it's own. Life on Earth, and Life on Mars.

My melodrama on Sol 6 about being already dead is proving to be true. I don't feel like Mark Watney anymore. That guy died on Sol 6 in a sandstorm. Who am I? I don't have a name; you don't need a name when you're the only human there. If there were even anyone to call for me, I wouldn't need a proper name, as the only thing of my kind here.

None of my old interests even interest me. I left my media stick on the Hermes, because I'm _stupid,_ and the thing I've liked most of what's available is Lewis's crappy tv. So, I'm the only human on Mars, and I watch twentieth-century television. The most fucked up thing of all of this is that I barely even miss all my favorite things. I'm a completely different person now.

Exactly who is it that Ares III left behind?

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 61

We left for the MAV in a bit of a rush, and the morning coffee we all had was still sitting on a shelf in the kitchen.

I wake up and make my breakfast, and every day I see those coffee cups. I don't touch them, I leave them where they are. Evidence of life other than me.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 62

Today I laid in bed and cried all day.

I have so much fucking work to do, but I couldn't help it. I caught sight of the empty frame of the MAV, and the mountains behind it, and the desert behind that, and remembered that there was nobody else on the entire surface of this god forsaken planet, anywhere, but me. It was me, all alone in this fucking wasteland, and it fucking blindsided me today in the morning before my walls all locked into place.

I'm so fucking alone. I'm so god damn fucking completely fucking alone. There's a hole in my chest and it feels like I'm completely empty, filled with black darkness and despair and I don't even have the energy to assess where it came from or why it's here. I swear to God it's suffocating me where I lay, I can feel the it tearing my chest.

I stare at the ceiling, and then imagine the atmosphere above it. Red, then black into inky space. The pain in my chest is making me curl over. There's nothing, anywhere.

I've never cried like this before. I'm making a pathetic keening sound, like a dog on it's deathbed. And I feel like a dog on it's deathbed, because I can't move any of my limbs and it's all so fucking pointless. I'm so fucking alone, I'm empty in my chest and this entire fucking planet is empty and I'm ready to beg someone for help but there is no one even here I could beg if I wanted to. This, all of this pain and suffering is completely fucking pointless. I could have just _died_ and then I wouldn't fucking be here suffering.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 63

This is pretty fucking pathetic. Laying around, crying myself to fucking sleep like a child, hoping and _praying_ that someone is just gonna come rescue me from my own fucking problems. Specifically, I am actually bent over my cot right now, hands in a prayer on the bed, tears streaming down my face, head leaning against my hands, begging anyone and anything that's out there to please send help, please someone _please_.

It's pathetic, me waiting on someone else to save my own sorry fucking ass.

But how am I supposed to solve this myself? I can't make a MAV send me back to fucking _earth_ on my own. What the fuck is it I'm looking for?

Please, someone, anyone, god, please

The point is, I'm being too fucking whiny to actually do anything to save my own ass.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 64

I'm tired of my own whiny bullshit. I caught myself standing here, looking at the rover, hating about how awful it's going to be to live in the rover while I go get pathfinder, peeing and pooping in bottles and having to store it all two inches from my face. But somehow knowing I'm being pathetic doesn't make the whining stop, and I'm still whining about it like a spoiled teen who thinks that the car her parents bought her isn't good enough. But man up, man, at least you have a fucking car at all.

I grab my arm, dig my nails in, and there aren't nail clippers on Mars so they quickly draw blood. "Man up," I say. "Get in the rover and go."

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 69

I'm so alone on this fucking planet.

The Hab is out of view now, and there is nothing but rusting dust.

I felt alone when the Hab was in view, but the entirety of the Hab represented human technology that had nothing to do with me. I was alone, but there was evidence of things other than me.

It's just me and the rover now, standing in the utterly silent expanse of Mars. There's nothing I can see except my suit and my car and this endless wasteland.

Something opens up inside of me, an expanse that mirrors the one I'm standing in. I can't remember feeling it before, but it doesn't feel new. It's the emptiness, the loneliness, tearing a hole in my chest.

It's eerily beckoning. It's calling for me to run away, get lost in it and never be found again. They've already left you all alone here, might as well enjoy the planet before the end. And I do, I want to drive away, go hunting in the caves that I can see just beyond the ridge, find out what's inside and just keep adventuring and adventuring until I'm tired and fall asleep and never wake up.

But I shake the thoughts out of my head, and continue hunting for the RTG. I can't come back later and look, either. I'm rationing my EVAs just like I'm rationing everything else. So my eyes drink in the sight of the caverns, while they can.


	5. Chapter 5

Mark Watney  
Sol 97

Pathfinder is on, and I'm yanking the radar to point at earth.

EVAs are hard. Mars doesn't have as much of an atmosphere, and Earth is visible a lot of the time in the Martian sky. I couldn't control it, and sometimes my eyes would look up at that tiny white dot. Seeing Earth so small made it impossible to ignore. I learned to avoid looking up at the sky at that blue dot. I avoid looking up at all, whenever possible, because seeing that pinprick in the sky is too much. Realizing that anything I love, anything that's ever happened in this universe, is 140 million miles away on that dot, is too much. I am here alone.

When I yank the radar to point to earth, my eyes are able to instantly find that pale blue dot.

I'm alone, I'm alone on this planet, on this entire planet, everyone else is on that blue orb, except that the blue orb is so far away it's a tiny white dot, and none of them even know I'm here. I'm entirely fucking alone. The feeling makes my chest hurt, like an elephant is sitting on it.

Thus far, I've survived by studiously denying the emotional reality of my situation. I mean, I obviously acknowledge it; I have to plan around it, after all. But I don't sit around and think about it. Anytime I find myself about to tip into emotional thoughts, I go rifle through their stuff and look for something to distract me. In one sense, I'm really turning into kind of a loser; I only work a couple of hours a day, and spend the rest of it watching tv.

But I swear to God I make eye contact with that dot, and it strikes me so hard I never had a chance. I'm totally at their mercy. I'm praying to NASA to come save me, and I wonder if NASA is a many-headed God;it's actions are unknowable, they don't talk to me, can't talk to me, and my very salvation depends on their whim, which is affected by things I utterly cannot control, influence or even know.

It's the moment I've been waiting for, as I point this metal dish at earth. That emptiness in my chest solidifies into something more solid, desperation tearing at the inside of my chest like a monster trying to escape. I haven't said it to myself but I know, if they haven't turned on their Pathfinder too, if they haven't seen me in the satellites, this is all for fucking nothing.

This is the awful part. It's not dying that bothers me; I'm the one who volunteered to be strapped to a tin of rocket fuel and sent to Mars. Death comes for us all, old news.

No, it's the dying alone. It's the fact that I'm already dead; I'm the living dead, wandering back and forth on Mars. I've spent over a month just getting pathfinder, and it doesn't matter if it works if no one at NASA checks the signal. They might think it's some sort of deep-space interfering frequency and actually _shut_ the signal _down._ It's my desperate call for help, my only play.

The pale blue dot stares back at me, tiny in the distance, as I point my radio dish and pray.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 97

The antenna boom rises, the lights turn green, and as the antenna points towards earth I can't help the blooming feeling in my chest.

I'm going to be talking to someone again. I spent three months as the loneliest man in history and it's finally over.

Sure, I might not get rescued. But I won't be alone.

It doesn't just feel like my isolation is over. I feel like I've been brought back to life.

My existence is more than just philosophical thoughts and contemplating the fact that nobody will ever know what happened to me. My existence is more than this martian ghost. I felt myself fading away into the sand, being forgotten, but not anymore.

Because earth knows I'm here, and they're _trying to talk to me._

Something inside me feels like it's ringing. The news hasn't sunk in yet, I'm still recovering from the impact. I bounced back to the Hab, and took off my suit with care. I set it down gently on it's hook, because it isn't just mine anymore, NASA made it for me. Looking around the Hab, it isn't just my gravesite anymore. People are here and talking to me.

Part of me believes they aren't going to come for me, that they'll tell me "sorry Mark, but there's just no way to rescue you." And right now, that's almost okay. Because at least I exist, at least people are going to be with me in my final moments, even if those people are just rotating a camera on a boom mic. I'm not going to die alone in the dirt.

I kneel into my farm, feel the dirt in my hands. _I'm not going to die alone._

Hot tears begin leaking out of my eyes, one after another, before my face has even turned. But my face does turn, and I feel myself bend over as I heave wracking sobs inside the Hab. There are cameras everywhere, I know they can see me, probably recording me having this breakdown, but I just don't care. The emotions are stampeding through me but they're not negative anymore, they're wonderful and my body feels featherlight and my chest feels hot like a fire's lit. I feel as if I could run to Schiaparelli crater right now, on my own, and I swear to God if they say they'll pick me up in the Hermes I'll do it if that's what it takes to get to their MAV.

My stomach is beginning to hurt from the exertion, but I still don't care. This dirt is warm and wet in my hand, and I rock back to sit down in it. I'm not going to die alone. I cross my legs and continue to cry, mouth hanging open so I can breathe. _Oh my God, they can hear me_. I'm not alone.

After a while, my sobs don't keep me bent over, so I crawl up and go lay in my cot. I'm going to track dirt into it, but trying to keep anything clean in here is a lost cause. I keep crying there until my body runs out of water. I'm tired and my face feels sore, so I curl into the cot and blink my tired eyes. I'm not going to take a nap, because I need to go write NASA a message, but for a little while I just lay here, because right now the gaping hole in my chest isn't quite so gaping anymore.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 97

Music:  
Mr. Blue Sky  
Electric Light Orchestra

After staking those signs in the ground, I find myself again in front of the pathfinder, painstakingly waiting.

I know a watched pot never boils, but I can't help but stare obsessively at that camera, waiting for it to rotate, my entire existence hanging on a camera.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 97

They haven't fucking told the crew I'm alive.

I'm glad I'm talking to another human again, but this isn't what I was hoping it would be. I thought maybe they'd connect me to the Hermes, reduce my communication lag-time from 12 minutes to something more serviceable. I was hoping I'd be able to talk to my friends again (after all the astrophysics conversations) and… sue me, tell them how I'm feeling. How much I miss them. Ask them if they made it to the Hermes okay.

But no, they're continuing to let them believe I'm dead, when they're fucking closer to _me_ than they are to earth.

"We're glad you're alive, Mark, because astronauts are an expensive asset and now we have a lot of bonus-Mars-time. But we're not going to tell your crew you're alive, because you're probably going to die and that would really bum them out." I say the words out loud, sneering and mocking. They're going to discard me like a used-up probe.

For someone who is struggling just to feel human, this is a real dick-punch.

I look at the pale blue dot amongst the stars. "Does anyone care?" I ask the dead air.


	6. Chapter 6

Mark Watney  
Sol 101

It amuses me to think that there are probably boardrooms stuffed with people theorizing how to get me to cooperate, because if I don't cooperate there is literally jack shit they can do.

What are they gonna do, discipline me when I get back? If I get back they aren't gonna do anything but congratulate me for my bravery or whatever, and we all know it.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 102

Why would I co operate with these nattering pigeons? They won't tell anyone I love that I'm alive. They're seemingly allergic to any sort of real, meaningful conversation. They don't give a shit about me, they just give a shit about their expensive asset.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 103

My dreams are beginning to get really vivid.

I emailed Dr. Shields about it, because she and a ton of other people check up on me almost daily. She's been pretty clear with me this whole time, basically admitting that yes, being alone on Mars is probably going to make me go crazy, and gave me some tips on how to avoid going crazy, but this one she didn't come clean with me on. She equivocated, saying a bunch of noncomittal things, and I think that means I'm going crazy.

Like, not just normal vivid dreams. I had normal dreams, and the longer I am here the more vivid they are getting. 30 sols in, they were just vivid. Now they're just getting downright fucking weird; last night, I dreamed I turned into the Hermes and flew to the galaxy they all go to in Interstellar. Also a gigantic moose talked to me and told me I was _chosen_. If dreams are supposed to represent repressed desires or something important like that, I don't want to know what I'm repressing. But no, I know what they are, they're a sign that I'm going crazy.

Honestly, if this is going crazy, that's fine I guess. Vivid dreams are hardly going to hurt me.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 105

I'm getting data dumps (finally!). Let me restate that, for more impact - I'm getting _emails_.

I've gotten emails from my mom and dad. From my family.

Not from the _crew_ , because that would be too much to fucking ask. Because NASA won't tell them I'm alive. I know NASA doesn't give a shit and the crew thinks I'm dead, so I still feel like I'm dying pretty alone, but at least I have an email a day with _my mom_. Oh God, I can talk to my mom.

I can send my mom emails back, as long as they're short, or I risk overloading our communication channels. Because there's such a terrible data transfer rate, we're pretty much limited to saying "I love you" back and forth, over and over. But honestly, that's all I need. I reread them over and over, and if I had a printer I'd print them out and put them all over the walls. I know you thought I was dead, but I'm coming back for you, mom.

I'm getting emails from close friends, too. Oh, and _the President_. And rock stars, and someone from the fucking _Cubs_. I'll bet I have a lot more emails than this if the president and the cubs are emailing me, but they dump them in pieces while I'm asleep, and there's only so much data they can pipe to me. Most of it is being reserved for things that will actually keep me alive.

They probably are only sending the things they think will be morale-boosting. I'm irritated at censorship because Freedom and America, and I'm irritated because I know NASA is just managing a fucking asset, not concerned with Mark Watney or whoever I am.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 110

So I'm hitting a stride here on Mars.

Oh, don't worry, Mars definitely sucks. Fuck you, Mars. But now that I've figured out some sort of communication with NASA, I've got a bunch of people smarter than me micromanaging my crops and telling me how to make them better. I mean, they're all a bunch of pussies. This is NASA after all, and my daily struggles are something they spent many millions of dollars trying to avoid. But it always comes down to one guy and a toolkit, doesn't it? Just like Tony Stark.

Finally, finally, people have sort-of conversations with me in between scientific nattering. Not anything serious, of course, anyone who is allowed to talk to me seems to be allergic to real conversations, just "How'd your martian day go?" "horrible as usual. How'd the cubs game go?" "horrible as usual."

Not that there's really time to chat, anyways. Just enough time to find out how the cubs are doing, and one or two errant sentences about my parents and the rest of the world. The CNN special is not Watch Mark Watney Die, by the way, it is the Mark Watney Report. Should have been called Watney Watch.

I've got a source of food, I've got a probe coming for me, and I've got an organization full of smart people helping me stay alive. I'd say this brings Mars up to a solid 2/10.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 117

I wrote that NASA is shitting itself in the log. What I mean is that in literally every chat window, they are stuffing my data limit full of schematics, concerns, questions, and anything they can think of about reclaiming water. Every 12 minutes, I get ten or twenty messages at once.

It's kind of funny, actually; I remember in training being legitimately scared of some of the things that happen to me on a daily basis. Breaking down the water reclaimer to clean out a hose would be a mission-scrub, I believe. But now it's just something that _has_ to be done, and I find it amusing that while I'm working, everyone at NASA is sending me upset messages like a bunch of agitated pigeons.

But those pigeons are very smart pigeons who double and triple check my calculations, so they can stay.

They told me not to take it apart and put it back together, and of course I did that. But now that I've done that, I see what they were concerned about. As I take apart the water reclaimer, invasive thoughts are occurring to me every second. What if I lose this screw? What if I can't find it? What if the pieces don't line up right? What if I've fucked it up forever?

I remember being a kid, and building my own gaming computers. I remember things never lining up quite right, despite the fact that they absolutely did when I began to disassemble it. They never go back together quite the same way. I'm not a teen building a homebuilt computer anymore. I have the schematics, I'm being excessively careful. But it doesn't stop me from feeling like every bolt I unscrew is never going to go back together the right way again, doesn't stop me from feeling like I might be sealing my fate.

But it's been over three months, and I'm a professional in dealing with these feelings now. They're just a part of Mars; anything you could be doing at any given moment might be the thing that kills you. But I'm doing the best I can, because that's all I can do, and I just have to hope it works out. Historically, it has. Looking back on Sol 6, it seems kind of silly that I wanted to kill myself.

I've got food, I've got NASA sending me materials, I've got emails. Yes, the loneliness is absolutely suffocating and the fact that I'm alone on an entire planet feels like it's tearing down my sanity and I'm going to die here alone, but I can work with this.

I can get through this.


	7. Chapter 7

Mark Watney  
Sol 119

The medium-grade sandstorm ended as suddenly as it begun. It was only a category 3 with 50kph winds. Nothing to worry about.

My body doesn't give a shit about what is and isn't appropriate to worry about. With every rattling motion, I was sure the Hab was going to rip apart. It didn't, it hasn't, it's sturdy as shit and probably never will. Nevertheless, it kept me from sleeping right, because each time the wind gusted against the canvas I tossed and turned in my bed.

Pathfinder, I'm less worried about. It's been on the surface for decades enduring storms ten times worse than this, I empirically know it will be fine. But the Hab was never designed for this.

I suit up to go clean off the solar panels, and Upside Down by Diana Ross is still stuck in my head from last night. I'm humming it as I go through the airlock.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 119

Just like when the satellite dish hit me, there was a split second where I knew what was going to happen before it did.

The Hab was exploding away from me, the potatoes visible through an open hole in the Hab, visible through my airlock window. It's a perverse sight, rich dirt and green plants against the open martian rusty sand. Plants should never be visible against the red dust like that. Without thinking, I know it's the last time these plants will ever live.

I'm going to die too, when we land. My helmet will shatter against the airlock, and the airlock will tear open too. These were my last moments, too.

My last thoughts this time are much the same. I'm glad I got to talk to my mom and dad one more time. I hope the crew makes it home okay. I hope the news doesn't hit them too hard.

—

Again, I'm surprised to be alive.

My helmet is shattered, but somehow the airlock remained mostly intact. There's a hissing noise, though, which means air is escaping. I'll suffocate soon enough.

Again, I'm alive, but I'm as good as dead.

This time around, though, I'm a lot more fucking angry. I survived _119 fucking sols_ just to die _anyways_.

"You know what!?" I scream, the noise tearing from my throat. "Fuck this! Fuck this airlock, fuck that Hab, fuck this whole planet!" I'm shouting at the top of my lungs, but no one can hear me. My voice is harsh with disuse, but I don't stop to clear my throat and instead just keep screaming.

"Seriously, this is it!" I continue screaming, sitting up angrily. I can hear the hissing noise, leaking air.

"I've had it! I've got a few minutes before I run out of air and I'll be damned if I spend them playing Mars's little game. I'm so god damned sick of it I could puke!"

I could. My gut hurts, I'm violently nauseous, so nauseous my whole body wants to curl over with it. I spent 113 sols fighting what I knew was inevitable all along. I knew what was going to happen to me Sol 6, the moment that empty MAV frame stared right into my soul when I stood on that hill.

I wish I'd killed myself then, before all the struggle and suffering. Before I went to go get pathfinder, lost sight of the Hab, and that fucking hole tore open in my chest that hasn't left since. Before anyone realized I was fucking alive; save them the trouble. But luckily -

"All I have to do is sit here. The air will leak out and I will die."

I look around at the airlock, as if I'm talking to it now. It can finally be fucking over.

"I'll be done." I'm not yelling anymore.

"No more getting my hopes up, no more self-delusion, and no more problem-solving. I've fucking had it!"

I lean over, head in my hands. It's over.

I notice that the hole in my chest is bigger than ever. It's the only thing I can feel. Like my entire body is empty, and dark, and hollow. It's a horrifying feeling, but I don't dwell on it. There's no time to dwell on it. My time is up.

That hiss is insidious, like a ticking clock.

What will I do with these last few minutes?

The hiss continues. I'm at peace with it. It's just a reminder of the time that's finally come to an end.

But there's nothing I can do. I can't talk to anyone.

The hiss is all I can hear.

I'm dying all alone. Just like I thought I would.

The hiss continues.

What the fuck was it all for?

The hiss continues.

I look through the Hab window, out at the rover.

If I could just get to that rover, I could talk to them one more time.

But if I could get to that rover, then I could get to the Hab. Theoretically, I could fix up the Hab, seal it up and repressurize. The potatoes would be dead, but they would still be edible. And if I can fix the Hab, I can sleep in the Hab. Food, water and shelter for hundreds of Sols.

There's no reason to die today.

The hiss continues, but it's not peaceful anymore. Suddenly, the hiss is a warning.

"Hear that, Watney?" I said to myself. "You don't need to die today."

I tell myself what I always tell myself. "You can always kill yourself tomorrow."

The warning of the hiss gets more frantic, an emergency warning blaring.

I took a deep breath. Another. Okay, so I don't want to die right this second. I want to talk to my mom first, maybe grab some morphine and drift off. That sounds a lot better than suffocation. Besides, I'm a big baby, and I want the extra seconds that hope is offering me.

That hissing noise is still there and I have to stop it.

I sigh one more time. All right. How do I get out of this one?

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 119

Okay, so I've decided to try and build up a static charge to set hair on fire. I admit, this plan has almost as high a fatality rate as just sitting in this airlock and letting myself die. But again, 'pretty much definitely going to die' is not the same thing as _going to die._

—

I'm spreading the resin pretty thin. There's a chance I'll just explode once I depressurize the airlock, no matter what these readouts say. And once I depressurize, there's no re pressurizing again. By the time it repressurizes I'll be dead.

Honestly, that one stops me in my tracks. I don't want to explode to death. I'd rather just fill the airlock with nitrogen and die.

But there's a chance I might not die at all, and I have to take it. Besides, the pain of exploding would be so quick it would be instant, and I would never even know it's happening. Much better than dying by antenna, like Sol 6.

—

With each kick I give the airlock, I am keenly aware I might exacerbate whatever weakness threw it across Mars. Keenly aware that it might roll over debris and puncture, causing me to explode before I can even execute my plan.

A couple times I considered just stopping where I was, and taking the 25-second hit in my EVA suit. I could bounce over debris in it, and there wasn't a chance of me just exploding. I wasn't exactly _avoiding death_ with this maneuver, just trying to buy myself a little more time.

This all amounts to this feeling pointless. My back hurts extremely badly. I'm sitting in the airlock and it's dawn on Mars, and I'm trying to convince myself to body slam this airlock another fucking time. But why should I? Each body slam comes with a fucking risk of explosion, and more importantly will make me hurt all over again.

I can't grab a Vicodin either, those are all back in the Hab. I don't remember if I took any before leaving to go check on everything after the sandstorm, but probably not, because it was going to be a lot of sitting and running diagnostics.

Every time it's time to do another body slam, I ask myself if this is really worth it. Maybe I should just make the suit fill the air with nitrogen, rip the duct tape off the leak, and die. My back won't hurt anymore if I'm fucking dead. I won't explode if I just stop rolling. Nobody will even know I survived the explosion; they'll see the airlock over here, assume I'm in the now-deflated Hab, already dead. Everyone will say it was a tragic accident kept me from coming home, not 'He just couldn't take this shit anymore.'

Because I can't. I can't take any more of this shit. I didn't realize that getting out of the airlock would take all fucking night of body-slamming. I thought I could just get to the rover, and die there.

There's even morphine in it because they had their own med kit and since we're all trained professionals, we don't need the dangerous medications locked away in a cabinet. I keep coming back to the morphine over the nitrogen because while nitrogen would be okay, I've had opiates before, and they're great. If I have to die on _fucking Mars_ , I want it to be as positive an experience as possible.

"Come on, Mark. You want to get to the rover," I tell myself, using my name. God, it's been so long since I heard my name spoken out loud. "Mark. Get to the rover. Email your mom, tell her you love her, tell NASA what happened. You don't have to lay down and die in an airlock with no one to talk to. You can die there, in the nice heated compartment, in the comfortable driving chair with the big windows, and you can talk to someone while you drift off. You can watch the sun rise, too. It will be beautiful."

That image pushes me forward as I continue to body-slam the airlock.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 119

I see that a pattern is forming here with my survival, but I don't acknowledge it. I don't want to jinx it.

Getting Martinez's helmet is terrifying. I'm running frantically around in a one-armed EVA suit barely able to see, sifting through a wreckage. My potato plants are frozen and crunch under my feet and the sound makes me want to cry and scream but I can't because I'm suffocating and will explode if I don't find the helmet but the plants keep crunching and I can't handle it.

The urge to fall to my knees in my frozen potato plants and die is overwhelming, but I don't. Adrenaline pushes me forward, through my ears popping and back into the rover airlock.

Once I get to the rover, helmet in tow, I just sit for a minute, catching my breath. My ears are already popping from the pressure change, but I got back to the rover just in time. It didn't occur to me earlier, but the rover won't be able to communicate because pathfinder needs Hab power to do that. It's probably fine, but I need to get the Hab back up and running to use it.

But getting the Hab working won't save me. I already know, I don't need to actually do the math; my food won't last me until Sol 856. I'll be long dead.

Again the urge to _just fucking die_ is overwhelming. I'm in the rover, I can fill it with nitrogen or find the fucking morphine or whatever, and it's daylight out, which is nice. I could even drive this god-forsaken rover up the nearest hill and look out at the view, one last martian trip. But I don't think I can stomach the feeling of driving away from the tattered Hab, knowing it's the last time I'll see anything made by humanity.

No, I'll probably drift off staring at the Hab, because I'm morbid and it represents my fleeting fight against the inevitable.

But the point still remains; I want to talk to my mom. I want to talk to my dad. To do that, I need to get the Hab online. I already spent all night body slamming the airlock, and don't want it to be a waste, either.

I drift off, whispering "You can kill yourself tomorrow."

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 120

Putting together the Hab goes way too quickly. It should be a slow and arduous affair, but knowing it's one of the last things I will ever do lends it gravity. Each motion is seared into my mind, the last acts of a body that's desperate to live. It preserves every glimmer of sunlight across the martian desert, every fracture of the light hitting my pupil. Every twinkling ice crystal on the leaves of potato plants that I so callously trample over.

Soon, the work is done, and I plug pathfinder in.

As I crawl into the rover and wait to depressurize, I'm aware that this is the last time I'm ever taking an EVA suit off.

It's sunset on Mars. The view is beautiful from the chair. The sun is setting on Mars, and it's setting on me for the last time.

I realize what I just thought. In definitive terms. Setting on me for the last time.

I look around at the Hab, reinflated but not pressurized, online, but none of the life support systems functional. It wouldn't take much additional work to get those systems up and running.

The pattern I noticed earlier, and wouldn't acknowledge, is that I've had quite a few 'last moments' by now. Almost once a month, Mars does something that really makes me feel like it's time to die, but somehow I get through it.

Because of this, something in me rebells against the idea of injecting morphine now. I've got communication, I've got food until Sol 600, and as soon as I talked to NASA they said they're accelerating their resupply schedule.

I've got a lot more going for me now than I did Sol 6. I've come this far; I don't want to throw it all away.

Again, I decide not to end it all. But this time something about the decision is hard, unyielding. This is not a provisional decision, made just to get me through to the next day. This is an absolute decision. I'm choosing life. I've survived 120 days on this god-forsaken planet already, over four times projected mission length. I want to see how long I can go.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 120

I'm never going to see my mom and dad's faces ever again. I forgot my media stick and all my photos on the Hermes. Everyone else has photos and mementos here, but not me; it's like I'm a stranger in their home. Where are my photos? Why didn't I bring any fucking photos down? Oh, right, because _I'm stupid._

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 124

I fucked up the Hab today. Not really badly, just enough that everything is all thrown around and I probably broke some sort of delicate instruments.

I had a temper tantrum, like a gigantic, overgrown baby.

—

"This is shit!" I yelled, grabbing a Small Rigid Container full of polymer index cards and flinging it across the Hab. "This is absolute shit!"

I grabbed another Rigid Container full of some sort of office equipment, and flung it into the Hab wall. "Fuck you, God!"

What kind of God would just fucking abandon me here in this featureless, barren, inhospitable wasteland?

I clenched my hands tight, felt my nails digging into the palm of my hand. I worried that I might draw blood and get an infection, an infection out here might literally be the death of me, but I can only loosen my grip infinitesimally, enough to ensure I don't actually hurt myself.

My temper, as if fighting back against me, makes me slam my hand down onto a metal table hard enough for the impact to reverberate up my arm. My slam turns into a punch as my knuckles meet the aluminum, and the pain makes me flinch but it doesn't actually stop me from pounding my hand repeatedly into the table. My chest feels like it's tearing but the shattering feeling in my arm relieves my pain.

I spin around and punch the composite shelving, but the shelving is light and knocks over, sending all of it's contents sprawling. A storage bin is falling slowly in the low gravity and I swing around to kick it. Seeing it fly away and slam into the Hab canvas makes my chest flutter with anxiety but not enough to distract me.

Suddenly my hand isn't punching aluminum anymore, it's my own leg I'm hitting and it feels hard enough to break bones.

"Stop!" My voice says, loud in my ears. "Stop throwing a fucking temper tantrum!"

My hand stops hitting my leg, I'm throwing my fisted hands at my side, bringing my fisted hands up to pull at my hair. My breathing is harsh, and I force myself to stand still, although my core is vibrating.

Without thinking, I down a Vicodin. I just want the pain to stop.


	8. Chapter 8

Mark Watney  
Sol 182

It's Iris launch day! They've estimated the chances of failure at 2.5%, which is _massive_ in NASA-measurements, but is really quite small. I mean, would you take a bet out against 2.5%? Yeah, you wouldn't.

Not that I want to get my hopes up, or anything. I'm just trying to look on the bright side. It's a delicate balance, staying optimistic enough to keep trying, but not getting your hopes up so high that when Mars inevitably crushes you it destroys you.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 182

I've been sitting in this rover 45 minutes, and I'm getting antsy.

Venkat just said that launch is soon, and I'm nervous. As in, so nervous I feel like the contents of my stomach are trying to dance inside me. I am tapping my leg frantically, but it isn't actually helping much. I'm wringing my hands, now, and that provides slightly more relief from the nerves flooding me.

My survival depends entirely on the next message I get from Houston. I stare at what I sent them.

[16:03] WATNEY: How'd the launch go?

It's been 13 minutes, and there's no message. It's not like they would respond literally the second they receive the message, they'd need some time to type out a reply.

But now it's been 15 minutes, and that's too long.

"I knew it, the probe failed," trying to accept the bad news before it's even delivered. I don't _know_ that it failed, but I don't want to be waiting all the computer all doe-eyed. But it doesn't make the chilling sadness enter my heart like I want it to; instead, I squirm even more.

20 minutes.

Can he just get it over with? I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack; I'm even slumped over the side of my chair in a massively undignified way, but I don't care, because there's no one on _this entire fucking planet_ to see.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 182

[16:25] JPL: The launch failed.

The message is short. No sugarcoating. It failed.

The voice in my head reverberates. _You hear that Watney? You're going to die here after all._

My eyes were glued to the rover screen. This fucking empty feeling is all I have left. I'm dead, dead all over again. I've let myself hope and try and fight, but in the end it all came down to the same fucking thing.

Living four years on this god forsaken rock was already not an inspiring proposition, and now I find out it was all for naught. I'm overwhelmed by the temptation to turn the Rover atmosphere to pure nitrogen, right now. Before I can really process the fact that I'm going to die, before I suffer anymore, like slamming a laptop shut in anger.

But I'm not angry. I'm not anything. There's just nothing left.

It's Sol 6 all over again. I'm already dead. Except now, I've already suffered. I'm already starving, and my back hurts every sol before I've even _done_ any work, and I haven't talked to another living human in hundreds of days. I'm talking to myself, out loud, all the time, just to hear the sound of some sort of voice that isn't tv shows or disco. This constant terror has become just another horrible part of my life.

Now it's all my life has left.

According to my food supply, I can last a few more hundred days if I so choose. But I don't want a few more hundred sols in the middle of the martian desert. Sol 6, I chose a couple hundred days in the fucking martian desert. Look where it got me.

I don't want to fight anymore. I want to rest.

I'm staring at that blinking screen. It's begging for a response.

Something about it being the very end makes me throw away all of my concern. Yes, this is all in the public domain. Millions of people watch my every word. But I'm not going to see a single one of those million people, ever again. They are as imaginary to me as the face of my mom, which is already horrifyingly fading from my memory.

[16:30] WATNEY: So it's the end of the line.

I hit return, watch the message fly away.

The next twelve minutes pass by in an eternity, in an instant. One frozen unending moment.

—

On earth, everyone was watching the conversation. Someone broadcast the messages to the Houston screen before the launch, and nobody could bring themselves to stop watching, to turn it off.

Venkat Kapoor didn't know, was sitting at his laptop in his office, typing replies with heavy hands.

[16:42] JPL: Not yet. We'll figure something else out. We're not the only country with a booster; we'll get one from someone else, we'll figure something out. We're not giving up on you, Mark. Everyone at NASA is still fighting for you.

—

I laughed, and cried, when the reply came in to me.

"Yeah right, Venkat," I said, tears streaming out of my eyes. "There's no fucking time, and you know it." There's just not enough time to build a booster, or negotiate for one; those things take years. No government is going to speed this shit up to save one man; they can't get their hands out of their asses long enough to save political prisoners, let alone save someone on Mars.

But none of that is really the issue.

I just don't want to fight anymore.

Waiting until that probe got here would be hundreds more days of fighting, and then there would be hundreds more days of waiting for Ares IV, and then driving to Schiaparelli without dying…

[16:45] I'm so tired. I don't want to fight anymore. I just want it to be over.

I don't address it with Venkat's name, because it isn't just Venkat I'm talking to anymore.

I've got 12 minutes before another messages comes in. I turn around, and begin rooting around in the rover for the med kit.

—

Venkat's eyes water, bent over the computer. He had barely spoken to the man, just a handful of conversations before launch, but now he was trying to talk him out of…

And what was he supposed to say? He was right. There was almost zero fucking chance that they'd be able to save him, they knew it all from the beginning. But he had to try, they all had to keep trying. At the very least, Mark should stay alive as long as he can. The man is an astronaut, it's his life dream to be on Mars, doing science.

He stares at the message, at the blinking cursor on his screen. What the fuck is he supposed to say?

[16:46] JPL: Mark, I know we don't really know each other. I can't imagine your situation -

He hadn't even finished the sentence before someone burst into his room. Dr. Irene Shields, the flight psychiatrist.

"Stop whatever you're typing," was her harried explanation.

Venkat could guess why she was here.

"I don't think what he needs is to talk to his flight head-shrink," Venkat said, dryly.

"I'm not. I'm here to NetNanny your messages," she said, gesturing.

Venkat shook his head, and did nothing. The man was going to do whatever he wanted, whether or not a headshrink was telling him how to word things. Right now, what Mark Watney needed was a real human connection.

NASA tried to keep conversation light and focused on business, in the hopes that it wouldn't leave him too much time to dwell on his situation. They sent him optimistic letters from friends, censored anything which might cause grief.

Dr. Shields had been against it all along, said that he'd know he's being censored, that it will only make him feel more alone. Venkat would bet anything she was right.

[16:48] JPL: Mark, I know we don't really know each other. I can't imagine your situation. So I can't, I won't tell you what to do.

Venkat couldn't tell him not to kill himself, that he had so much to live for. His situation was bleak. He was probably going to die, forsaken on a barren wasteland. His outlook was worse than a terminal cancer patient's.

[16:49] JPL: Mark, I know we don't really know each other. I can't imagine your situation. So I can't and won't tell you what to do. What I can do is tell you that as long as there's a chance, we're all going to keep fighting tooth and nail to get you home. We are not going to give up on you, no matter what happens.

Dr. Shields was standing over his shoulder, but she didn't have anything to correct about what Venkat typed. He leaned over the computer, and hit return.

—

The entirety of Houston watched intently. Some members of the audience were tearing up, crying as the messages came through.

Mindy Park was sitting at her station, tears streaming openly down her face. She'd been watching Mark fight for months, fight against impossible odds. This couldn't be how it ended. He deserved so much more.

—

I stare at the message, blinking back at me.

I think this is what I wanted to hear.

I'm holding morphine in my hand, uncapped again, more decisively this time. But this time I'm not staring at the empty MAV frame, but instead at that computer blinking against the landscape, Venkat's message telling me that they're not going to give up on me.

I'm staring at the blinking words. I take a screenshot, for posterity.

But Venkat, I'm so fucking tired. You can't possibly understand how tired I am. There's only so many times a man can choose not to kill himself before it wears him down into nothing more than a hollow shell. There's not even a Mark Watney to bring back anymore. Why the hell are you trying to rescue me?

—

"Dr. Kapoor," A nameless face burst into his office.

"What?" Venkat said, distraught. The gravity of the situation must mean no one is knocking.

"Come down to control," he said. "Bring your laptop."

The two rose from the desk and swiftly went down to the control room; Venkat held his laptop open, just in case he got a message from Watney. But none came.

As soon as he entered Houston, he was assaulted with a barrage of noise. People were staring at the screen, aghast.

"Why the fuck is this up on the big screen?" Venkat yelled into the room. "Give the man some fucking privacy!"

"He knows that we can all see this," Mitch said, a guilty edge to his tone.

"Tell him he can't!" Mindy said, standing up. "He's still got hundreds of sols worth of food! Surely we can figure _something_ out in that time!"

Other voices started yelling, throwing their opinions into the mix.

Venkat opened his mouth to yell at them, but then he really saw what he was looking at. A room of fifty people all yelling at Mark Watney, telling him to _please hold on, we're coming_.

Venkat immediately sat his laptop down and started typing.

—

I'm raising my hands to type out a message when another one comes in.

[17:02] JPL: Someone at Houston accidentally left your chat window on the big screen, and nobody decided to turn it off. I didn't find this out until they dragged me down a couple minutes ago. I was going to yell at them all to give you a little human decency and privacy, but… they're all yelling for you, Mark. Every single person in Houston is staring at your messages, yelling at me to tell you to hold on. There's a building full of people you've never met who would fly to Mars themselves to save you if they could. They're all holding on for you, Mark. I know that Mars is cold and dead and you must feel alone, but you're not. Everyone is fighting as hard as they can to bring you home.

My eyes watered. I'm glad Venkat shared this with me. I don't have a mind to be angry about the privacy invasion, I'm the one who sent this over a public channel. I didn't care about the privacy invasion because I thought I was saying goodbye.

The morphine is still sitting on the dashboard.

I don't need to think about my response. My eyes are watering, and the desperate thought leaps into my mind instantly.

—

[17:13] WATNEY: What am I supposed to do?

Venkat's hands flew across the keyboard in response. He didn't know that his words would be repeated as a mantra for generations.

—

[17:25] JPL: Just hold on, Mark. We're coming.

It is a ridiculous, desperate proposition. They have no plan for how they're going to come save me. They're asking me to wait for years, starving to death. Starving to death is fucking painful, and desperate, and they just want me to lay in bed while it's happening. Minimum calorie expenditure, minimum calorie count, whatever, they just want me to lay in bed and excruciatingly waste away.

But fuck Venkat, he convinced me. I'm picturing the entirety of NASA staring at that gigantic screen and yelling at me to hold on, and it moves me. There are so many people pulling together to get me off this rock. If hundreds of thousands of people can pull together billions of dollars to save one fucking man, then the least I can do is hold on for them.

I'm not just holding on for them, I'm letting their determination fuel me. It's their determination that makes me put the morphine back into the container. It's their determination that lifts my hands to type a reply.

[17:38] WATNEY: Okay. I will.

—

Cheering breaks out in Houston, and with the cheering comes even more crying. Everyone is yelling in the control room, but nobody is pointing out exactly what it is they've avoided today. NASA psychiatrists always say, 'The emotional dangers of space travel are just as dangerous as the physical ones.'

"He needs better psychiatric care," Dr. Shields says, eyeing Mitch, who was her boss on the Ares III project.

Mitch holds his hands up. "I told you, Teddy is the one who made those decisions, not me."

Teddy Sanders stands at the back of the room, quiet. "You can do whatever you want, Dr. Shields," he murmurs, before leaving.

—

After a moment passes, I take a rattling sigh. I know it was death by my own hand, but the customary feeling of avoiding death shudders through my body.

So I crack a joke.

[17:40] WATNEY: You better not be lying to me about Houston.

[17:40] WATNEY: Rover is uncomfortable. Going back to Hab. Will check in tomorrow morning.

It's their determination that makes me put that stupid EVA suit on. It's their determination that makes me lug my sorry ass out of the Rover, and I know Venkat isn't lying because I swear I can feel their determination as I drag my sorry body into the Hab.

Tonight I don't watch any tv, or try and distract myself. I just lay in bed and think about how that pale blue dot has two hundred thousand people on it who are making it their full time job just to come rescue me. All I've got to do is _hold on_.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 183 (I think)

You can kill yourself tomorrow, Mark. You can kill yourself tomorrow.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 187

Ever since Venkat convinced me to hold on for NASA, I've suddenly become concerned for all the people helping me. Like my horrible existence doesn't matter and I would have ended it Sol 182 if it were my decision, but it's not, not anymore. I've got everyone at NASA to live for. My life isn't about me, it's about them now.

To that end, I send them little encouraging messages.

[5:55] WATNEY: Make sure your bosses let you sleep; you can't get anything done without any sleep.

[8:32] WATNEY: If this is how hard you work for a stranger, I can't imagine how hard you work for your family.

[12:01] WATNEY: I'm going to buy everyone a beer, personally, when I get back.

I'm not really sure if they get heard, but Venkat insists that it's making a big difference in the morale of my team. The team I'm managing from 140 million miles away. Talk about telecommunication.

They're letting more emails through, now, too. It seems that after the debacle of the other day, they decided that pretending I was fine was _not_ okay, and now they have real conversations with me, letting whatever person at the time isn't busy talk to me to keep me company.

Dr. Shields has been particularly determined, giving me a whole list of exercises to do to keep myself sane. Things like 'write personal letters to your crewmates,' 'take personal time to relax' 'list all of the positive things that happened today.' That one amuses me, because the list is usually short. 1) funny episode of tv. 2) vicodin. 3) sleep.

I bitched at her about it, said I didn't agree to this, that I'd only agreed to 'hold on,' not do _real_ work, but she didn't give a rats ass. And really, what the fuck am I going to do anyways? But even though it's my only task on this god forsaken wasteland (they're giving me vacation days from science to 'rest and recuperate,' as if I can recuperate from being suicidal), I still don't want to do it.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 189

The suicidal emptiness was getting too much for me, so I decided to try and do science to distract myself. There's something relaxing about it.

Yeah, I'm probably going to starve to death on Mars. Most days, I'm actually more or less okay with that. I mean, some days I yell and scream and throw things around the Hab, and some days I cry, but most days it's just a fact of my life.

But the science is what I came here to do. Put things on slides, squeeze things outside of test tubes, and get excited over changes most people wouldn't even be able to recognize. When I'm doing science, I'm not _the only guy on Mars_ , _the loneliest human to ever live_ , _a dead man walking_ , or _dying on this fucking rock_. When I'm doing science I am just Mark Watney the astronaut.

It's liberating. I thought I'd never be that guy again When I'm doing experiments, I may be trapped on Mars, but I'm Mark Watney the astronaut. I'm supposed to be on Mars; I came here with a mission. I came here to make this planet habitable for all of humanity, not just myself. I'm Mark Watney and I'm doing my mission.


	9. Chapter 9

Log Entry  
Sol 192

Christ _Jesus_ they're coming to save me.

Someone at NASA put together a way for them to basically swing around earth and come back for me. They are coming to get me.

They're going to be here _soon_ , too. Sol 549, to be exact. That is _way_ sooner than the Sol 1000-something estimate for Ares IV coming to save me. I am not going to lie, I'm pretty thrilled about that. I don't have to string my miserable fucking existence out 1000 Sols, just 549.

Yeah, I mean, it won't necessarily succeed, and if it doesn't then 549 is the sol I die. But I'd rather sooner than later. Also, THREE TIMES now I've been the living-dead, and honestly I'd rather just die than experience it a fourth.

Jesus, I'm already almost at halfway through this hell! Woo! I thought that Sol 192 was going to be less than a quarter of the way through, but not anymore. My hell is going to end that much sooner.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 196

Pathfinder was no longer talking to the rover. I tried not to panic.

My hands were shaky as I folded the troubleshooting list flat. I wrote it down as a hard copy, in case the computer died and I wasn't able to access it. If I can't talk to NASA, I have no fucking idea how I'm going to ghetto up a solution to get to Schiaparelli in time. I'm good, but not power-three-life-support-systems-in-a-rover good.

But fuck. _Fuck_.

Pathfinder's dead. I've lost the ability to contact Earth.

I'm on my own.

I squeeze my eyes shut in my helmet, and force harsh breaths out of my mouth.

"Fuck you Venkat," I all but growl. I'm only fucking alive because he convinced me to hold on, for some _fucking_ reason, and of course Mars has to fuck something else up for me.

For a moment, the image of the morphine flickers into my mind, the perpetual last resort.

But not all is lost, not yet. I'm not dead, or dying, and the plan to save me is still in place. I have enough food to make it until my rescue. If I can get to the MAV, I can talk to Earth again and get blasted into the Hermes. Rescue is still possible. Just because I can't talk to all those people on Earth, doesn't mean they're not all fighting for me, still.

They just won't be able to do much, because any rover modification discoveries they make can't reach me anymore, so their entire project is going to get defunded. All they can do is check the NASA website every sol for satellite images and morbidly watch my fight to survive. They can't fight for me anymore; they can't reach me.

I squeeze my eyes tighter. But they'll be there once I make it to Schiaparelli. Lewis, Martinez, Johanssen, Beck, Vogel, Venkat, Mitch, Mom, Dad, everyone who is pulling me through this horrible nightmare will be there. I just have to get there.

I look up at the horizon, in the direction I know Schiaparelli is is. Just wait. I'm on my way.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 197

My intent was to choose a theme song today. Most of the space-related songs are positive; Life On Mars even has engaging conversation between Ground Control and Major Tom.

But god damnit, one of Lewis's songs actually made me sad. Anglophile hundred-year-old-or-whatever music made me cry. _Alone Again (Naturally)_ by _Gilbert O'Sullivan_. The first five lines of the song caught me unawares while I was working, struck right into my heart before I even knew what I was listening to.

In a little while from now  
If I'm not feeling any less sour  
I promise myself to treat myself  
And visit a nearby tower

And climbing to the top  
Will throw myself off

I dropped what I was doing, and just _listened_.

In an effort to  
Make it clear to whoever  
Wants to know what it's like  
When you're shattered  
Left standing in the lurch at a church  
Were people saying, My God, that's tough  
She stood him up  
No point in us remaining

I've never been left at the altar, but… If you had asked me the worst part about being stranded on Mars would have been _before_ it happened, I would have said _the planet's inhospitable, moron_. But if you asked me Sol 7, or now…

We may as well go home  
As I did on my own  
Alone again, naturally

To think that only yesterday  
I was cheerful, bright and gay  
Looking forward to who wouldn't do  
The role I was about to play

I cringed, looking down at the martian ground, remembering how exciting and terrifying the descent to Mars was. How excited we were.

But as if to knock me down  
Reality came around  
And without so much as a mere touch  
Cut me into little pieces  
Leaving me to doubt

I used to sneer at the depressed. On Sol 5, if you had asked me about a depressed guy, I would have been empathetic. Oh, I'd give a rousing speech and be there for them, but essentially I'd just say you need to buckle up and get going. I thought depression was due to some sort of weakness of character where people wallowed too much. I still believe that, but…

Talk about, God in His mercy  
Oh, if he really does exist  
Why did he desert me  
In my hour of need

I truly am indeed  
Alone again, naturally

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 199

I don't stop listening to that song.

Oh, if he really does exist  
Why did he desert me  
In my hour of need

I'm singing along, bitter, pleading.


	10. Chapter 10

Mark Watney  
Sol 201

First up, I loaded up on Vicodin for my back. Hooray for Beck's medical supplies!

I'd quite forgotten about them, actually. I took some for the antenna wound that is responsible for my current predicament, but hauling the dirt was not backbreaking in the same way these rocks are. That was constant physical activity distributed over weeks; this is just a singular, crushing weight, then nothing, then the crushing weight again.

—

Christ, the bathwater was dirty. My first bath was long, because there was no way I'm getting out, but even I'm disgusted by how brown the water is. And it doesn't matter, too, because the moment I step outside the bath my poop-soil-floor is going to get on my feet again. I'm so used to the smell of shit-soil that I don't even notice it anymore unless I take special note of it.

But cleaning out the floor is out of the question. I should have done it earlier, when I had some down time, but at the time I was just so ready to die it didn't matter. Now, my back is decimated and my full-time job is to get the Watneymobile working for my trip to Schiaparelli. I'm going to have to live with the dirt floor.

Maybe I can lay something down over the dirt, at least from the bath to my bed. That way I can just go back and forth without getting dirty. Although, my bed is filthy too. I can probably take it outside to beat some of the dirt off of it. And hundreds of years from now, scientists can be confused as shit when they find particles of earth soil and dead bacteria in some random martian sand. I love confusing future scientists.

But I'm not going to take an EVA just to try and clean my bed. Maybe I can just beat it off in here. (heh heh)

—

I cleaned the bed, just shook it off across the Hab.

I tore a Large Flexible Container (Hefty Lawn and Leaf) down the middle, and laid it down along the dirt. I can probably lay more down around the Hab, but for now I'm just doing this. It's kind of a nice feeling, because the soil has soaked up some water again and is soft, so the flooring has a comfortable squishy feeling.

I'm shamelessly spending the next few days days either in this bathtub, or in my cot. I've even put the computers on a cart and wheeled them around, so I can spread all my crap out around my bed like a lazy asshole. People in their mothers basements the world over would be jealous.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 202

I'm going to lay down flooring over all of the Hab.

I didn't realize how much I missed the feeling of being clean. I already recycled the bathwater twice, pouring it back into the water reclaimer in between baths and letting it clean out more. It would need a hell of a hose cleaning, except that I clean the hose whenever I move it to the RTG, so it's getting regular maintenance. So I have a clean bath, a clean bed, and a clean floor between them. It's amazing.

I haven't ran out of deodorant, mostly because after the floor made of human shit, I felt like it was a lost cause. I only used it when I felt so sweaty that the sticky feeling bothered me. But now that I have a non-dirt floor, and a bath, I might use deodorant every sol in a feeble attempt to keep myself clean. I've ran out of toothpaste and mouthwash and everything else, though, so we'll see how that goes.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 203

I stand in front of a mirror and scratch the plaque off of my teeth with a thin metal rod. It's not teeth brushing, but it's something.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 204

You know, I'm really gaining an appreciation for reruns. And for sitting around the house naked all the time. Maybe people living in their mothers basement have it right after all. I'm basically doing the same thing, except that if any of my appliances die, I die too. The way those overgrown children act, though, you'd think their lives depended on their appliances too. Maybe they do, what the hell would I know?

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 209

Waking up to frigid weather felt surprisingly nostalgic. I grew up in Chicago, after all.

For a split second, I thought I left the window open.

It felt like the brutal winter air was let into my apartment, and I woke up shivering under my inadequate blankets. Why the hell would I leave my bedroom window open in the middle of winter? Maybe the heater messed up and made my room too hot again.

I sit up to close it, but I remember that it isn't winter. It's Mars, and my blanket is a threadbare sheet and my layers are people's shitty spandex clothes for temperature-controlled environments.

With the realization that I'm not in Chicago comes a crushing sense of depression which closes over me so quickly I double over in my bed. For one _amazing_ split second, I thought I was at home in Chicago.

Tears are pricking at my eyes because for a split second I was _home_ again, and it was fucking taken away from me.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 209

The trailer's battery is in the undercarriage, but the main power line runs through the pressure vessel, so I was able to wire Hab batteries directly in (no small feat in the damn EVA suit).

"Fuck!" I yell into the EVA suit.

My hand is too large in this fucking suit to quite get the cable to reach where I need to splice it in. It's lingering a few centimeters away, taunting me. I stretch my arms down and over the battery, but it doesn't come any closer.

There's nothing fucking for it, either. I've been a mechanical engineer long enough to know that sometimes, you just have to keep shoving 'til it fits.

I grunt as I throw my entire body weight into shoving my arm down further, pressing all the air from my chest and through my vocal chords.

It's moments like this, as I strain uselessly, that I really fucking hate this planet.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 211

Okay, so I'm a sentimental freak. It's the day the Taiyang Shen is supposed to launch. I spelled out a message in Morse code, GOOD LUCK CREW.

I'm completely tied up in knots. I don't get nervous like this over my own stupid shit anymore, but this is dangerous for them. If they don't get those supplies, they'll die. Christ, I'm more nervous than the first time I had to measure my potato growth.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 226

I wasted half this day without meaning to. Just woke up, went to sit by the window, and ended up staring at the empty MAV struts for hours. They have a tendency to catch my eye and then make me remember that I'm not actually alive. Forgot to eat my breakfast ration, though, so that's a plus.

I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't get up, couldn't move. Thought about it, but it kept getting lost in my head. Just kept thinking about what everyone is doing on earth, there, without me. Wasn't sure I existed anymore. It was just me and the empty landing struts and the fact that humanity was never supposed to see that.

Started scratching my legs, there are red marks all up and down where I drug my hands over them. Don't know why I did that. Was just… it was too empty. This planet is empty, this Hab is empty, this atmosphere is empty. Too empty.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 238

I'm doing it again, the fucking wasting time. The last three days I've spent hours just sitting in front of the window, staring out at the landing struts and not getting any work done. The papers with the math are spread out in front of me on the table, but every time I read numbers they just dance in front of my eyes until I forget what they were and I find myself staring at those landing struts again.

Out of nowhere, I slam my hand down hard on the aluminum table. The pain in my knuckles feels nice, and I feel the impact reverberate up my arm. I do it a few more times, enjoying the sensation on my hands. Once more, I punch the table, staring at my hand as I do it. My hand is really beginning hurt, my wrist aches, and I feel myself being dragged back into my body.

Okay, numbers in front of me. I can do this.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 255

Remember when I let Venkat talk me into life again? Somehow, it's still working.

Every day I wake up with the same profound desire to just fucking die that I woke up with on Sol 6. My back hurts, my legs hurt, my chest hurts ten times more than those things do, and I can barely get my addled brain together for the ten seconds it takes to have a useful thought.

Knowing there's a world full of people watching me try to get home, every day, though… I don't want to let them down. They've worked so hard for me.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 257

I'm so unbelievably bored.

Yes, most days I lay around feeling like the embodiment of emptiness and death or whatever, but sometimes I get a reprieve and get to bounce around the Hab, bored out of my mind. Well, lay around the Hab, because I don't want to waste calories.

I'm playing chess against the computer. The longer I'm here, the more appealing the strategy game becomes to me. It was never interesting to me before, but the more time I'm alone the more time I spend thinking about the actual strategy in the game. One game of chess a month turned into two, turned into three, turned into once a week, turned into multiple times a week, turned into this. 257 sols later, and I'm actually playing against the computer on the hardest difficulty.

Johanssen loves chess. She was in her high school's freaking chess league. I try not to think about what it will be like if I get to the Hermes, but I can't stop myself from fantasizing about playing chess and beating her.

Oh, don't worry, the computer is trashing me. Not that much has changed.


	11. Chapter 11

Mark Watney  
Sol 260

After two hours of brutal labor, during which I whined a lot, I got it all in.

"Why did this have to happen to me?"

I don't know why I'm wasting breath on verbal speech. I'm supposed to be conserving my filters. I've still got 289 sols until I escape this brutal, god forsaken rock.

"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

I think it's so that I don't go insane from the silence.

"Mark, you're not a good person. You're a rude asshole."

I threw the rock onto the rover's bed with an enormous effort and a grunt to go with it.

"That's why you're hauling rocks on Mars."

I bent over, gasping for air with the strain. I collapse on the ground for a moment, just to catch my breath.

At least I'm not overheated in this gigantic suit; on earth, the heat from my own breath annoys the shit out of me when wearing a mask, but Mars is so frigid it cools before I can even notice. Hence, I feel like I'm breathing pure and mild air from a field on earth.

But I can't dawdle; if there's going to be a problem with the Watneymobile, I have to discover it early while I still have time to fix it.

"You're a highly respected member of the scientific community and a pillar of exploration. You thought you were coming to Mars," I pant, bouncing towards the next basalt rock. "To study and expand humanity. But you're not. You're coming to lift rocks."

I pick another rock, roll it over, and haul it up. "Rocks that anyone back on earth would pay millions of dollars for."

I haul this gigantic rock towards the rover. "This is your punishment. To haul million dollar rocks around for their usefulness as dead weight."

Another grunt, another rock. "When you get back to earth, you have to be a good person. The person you always said you would be."

Another rock. "Donate to charity. When people are looking for encouragement, give it to them. Don't say they're lazy because they're not as accomplished as you."

Another rock. "Because as you are now keenly aware, some people have obstacles you don't."

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 300

The part of my ration that I can't eat is staring at me. Most days I just cover it with a bowl and put it back in the fridge before I can think about it, but today I just stare at it longingly.

My stomach is shredding my insides, and I feel like the last meal I ate must have been a meal of knives, because the hunger is making me double over. But it's not like that additional cube of rehydrated meatloaf would relieve this excruciating hunger. Nothing does. Even a full 3/4 ration doesn't help. I don't allow myself full rations unless I spend most of the day doing hard manual labor, trying to preserve calories. And even a full ration wouldn't fix this.

Today I'm just laying around, trying to take a break on behalf of my screaming back. I don't want to use up the Vicodin, either. But that means I'm only eating a half ration today, and the amount of food that is on my plate is just fucking pathetic.

It's evolved beyond hunger. When you're starving to death, you stop feeling proper hunger really quickly. What replaces it is a sharp pain in your midsection, and ironically enough that pain doesn't make me eager to eat. Over time the knife evolves into a lot of knives, into a shredding sensation that never fucking goes away. I am dying for food because I know that would make the pain _just fucking stop_.

It doesn't escape my notice that without the potatoes, on normal rations, this would be the exact day I ran out of food.

"It's okay," I tell myself, forcing myself to cover it with a bowl and putting it back in the fridge. "It's okay, Mark," I say, looking down at the food I do have. "You have plenty of food. Mark, you're lucky you even get to eat today. Look, you get to eat and lay around and watch TV. You don't have to lift jack shit, you can just lay down and put a pillow under your back and watch Dukes of Hazzard." My voice is shaky but I don't notice.

I'm cringing as I walk away from the fridge, the blackness in my chest growing and growing.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 312

You know, I really think I'm beginning to lose it.

It isn't surprising, really. We were warned about the psychiatric impacts of coming to an uninhabited desert planet, as well as being on a spacecraft for the three months it took to get there and the three months it took to get back. And that's with six crewmates to talk to, an uninterrupted connection to NASA, and all the food and resources you could hope for.

We were warned that we might suffer the effects of clinical depression due to isolation from the rest of our entire species. Yeah, okay, that's been happening since Sol 6. They warned us about anxiety, since the only thing separating us from the endless void is canvas and composite. That's been a part of my life since launch, and it terrified me. Sol 6 was even worse, since we don't have abort procedures and there's nothing I can do. But it was better, too, because suddenly it didn't matter.

But recently, those effects (depression, anxiety, e.t.c.) have actually begun to taper off. Initially, I was thankful for the random reprieve from nightmares, sleeplessness, anxiety attacks, and the crushing void in my chest.

But I'm not so sure I should be thankful anymore.

It isn't being replaced with a wonderful feeling of wholeness and satisfaction. It's being replaced with the surreal sense that I don't really exist. Like I'm in a movie featuring me, but I'm not actually me. Or rather, I am me, but I'm not in my body. It's wandering around on it's own while no one is home. I can't explain it. Everything is far away. Nothing hurts anymore. I can't feel a thing.

My body has no one home. But it's doing the right things though, the things for survival, so it could be worse.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 313

When my body isn't wandering around like an unleashed animal, I find myself talking to people who aren't there a lot.

It started as a conscious habit to keep myself connected to the crew. I verbally spoke aloud, told them about things they would or wouldn't like about Mars right now. Dr. Shields said that it was good, that I should do anything which keeps me connected to humanity (and we're all going to ignore how desperate that sounds). But somewhere along the line, my brain started taking it a bit too seriously.

But I just caught myself yelling "Hey, come here!" To a Chris Beck who is _not here._ And like whenever I forget, the crushing realization closed over me just like it did Sol 6.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 315

So I explained that I'm yelling to people who aren't there, right? Well, I did that the other day, and then I fucking _heard_ something.

I nearly shit myself. I ran naked into the main room, but nothing was moving. There was nothing that would have made noise. I investigated everything, but there wasn't. I thought I was just imagining things, so I didn't log it or anything. I just climbed back into the cot like it was no big deal.

But it happened again two sols ago.

And it happened again just now, too.

I've investigated several times over. There just isn't anything fucking there.

We were warned, in a very oblique manner (because they considered it a very remote possibility) that we might start to suffer more… complicated psychological problems. Getting stranded on Mars was also a remote possibility, so I've concluded if it's considered a remote possibility it tends to happen to me, therefore I'm assuming that's what's happening here.

Luckily, my 'complicated psychological problem' (that's what I'm going to call it and I'm sticking to it) is all in my ears, and the only audio input here on my personal Havana is the machine noises of working machines and the knocking noises of broken machines. I'm not going to mistake it for anything _really_ real.

Footsteps, moving glasses, I can ignore it.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 320

If this is the brain's natural defense mechanism against isolation, I've gotta say, it sucks ass. Hearing the sounds of people right around the corner and _knowing it's a lie_ is worse than not hearing it at all. I wish it would just fucking stop.

I throw a cup into the other room, because if I startle the fake noises with real noises they stop sometimes.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 345

I'm bent over a desk, supposed to be planning things with the rover and double and triple checking calculations and getting things done but I can't, all I can do is bend over this desk and cry.

I can hear murmuring, indistinct murmuring, just barely, the sounds of a crew that are not fucking here anymore.

I can't handle it, I leap up, run into the kitchen, but the crew still isn't fucking there and I can still hear their voices in my ears. I start pacing around the Hab, all 1000~ sq. Feet of it, they're not in any room but the murmuring still sounds like they're so close and so quiet. I can't stop, I can't sit down, I can hear them and _why aren't they here?_

—

Sol 348

October 12th is Watney's birthday. He's long since stopped keeping track of earth days, and doesn't bother to figure out what Sol Christmas, Thanksgiving or his Birthday is on anymore.

Sol 348 is October 12th, 2037, his 43rd birthday. He knows his birthday is sometime around now, but doesn't know the exact day and doesn't care to find out.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 355

Try as I might, it doesn't escape my notice that I've officially been on Mars an Earth-year. A sol is 1.027 days, so 365/1.027 is about 355 Sols. This is timekeeping all astronauts know by heart. This makes today (tosol?) my anniversary of being on Mars. Well, it's not a martian anniversary, because a martian year is 668 sols, but who cares. Luckily I won't be on Mars _that_ long.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 361

It doesn't escape my notice, either, that now it's the anniversary of the sol I was abandoned. The horrible empty feeling is a little bit worse every day, like it always is.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 365

I'm forgetting what people look like.

Since _I'm stupid,_ I forgot my media stick. This is a problem not only because I've been stuck with Lewis's disco music for 365 Sols, but my media stick had pictures of my family. My loved ones. My friends.

I don't have any photos of them down here.

I'm forgetting what they look like.

I'm going to die here and I don't even remember what my fucking mom and dad look like.

It's amazing; we think we recognize people, but we don't. We know someone is pale, and has blue eyes, and if we're in love with them we perhaps notice their lips and noses and eyebrows, but most people don't record the details. We record isolated observations. Even someone who saw their mother yesterday can't call to memory an exactly-correct recreation of her in their mind. And I haven't seen a single human for 365 Sols.

I wouldn't be surprised if solitary confinement degraded the brain's ability to recognize human faces. Because I'm stuck with the horrifying realization that I can't put together a human face in my mind anymore. I have the photographs that the crew left of their loved ones, and I have some pictures of the crew, but that's it. The rest of humanity is a quickly-fading memory.

If only I'd brought literally any of my things. My computer, my media stick, my wallet… anything at all.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 376

You know, I hurt my back over three months ago, and it still radiates pain almost every day. I think something is actually medically wrong with it, but there's literally fuck-all I can do about that. The only thing I'm concerned about is keeping my suffering down, so I'm reduced to just popping Vicodin every time the pain becomes too much (which is _all the time_ and has been that way for a while now!)

I gotta say one thing I do enjoy about Club Mars is the fact that I can take prescription painkillers all the time and there's no one here to nag me about it. We had extensive medical testing before launch, too, so I know exactly how drugs will react to my body and which dosages are appropriate for me. And yeah, so what if I take an inappropriate dosage sometimes, there's no one here to give a fuck. I'm not taking enough to mentally compromise myself; Mars has taught me that anything can go fatally wrong at any moment, and I have to be prepared for that. Well, you could also look at it as 'I'm mentally compromised all the time because I'm fucking crazy, so it doesn't matter).

But I'm not taking any today. Instead, I'm being responsible and spending most of my time laying around in the Hab, minimizing calorie expenditure and eating half rations. The knives still shred my insides, but I'm too far away to care.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 282

When I first was abandoned, I hated the fact that there wasn't much to do. After hauling all of the dirt, I just spend a lot of time watching tv. It felt disgusting I actually kind of hated myself for it, letting a world-class engineer-botanist just go to seed (get it) watching television endlessly. I hated myself for being so pathetic and wimpy and useless and whatever.

But now, I look forward to it every day. There's not much else I can really stomach doing every day. Everything on Mars is some sort of intellectual, involved, life-or-death trial. Even the games I have access to require using your brain. But there's no trial in watching tv; they're all reruns, and I know what's going to happen to these characters.

The situation is totally fucking reversed. It's the characters who are supposed to face horrible, life-or-death circumstances, and you're supposed to be the one watching on the edge of your seat. Then you get to go back to your chosen, happy life. But no, I'm the one who has no idea what the fuck is going to happen to me, and I'm going to the lives of television characters for a bit of happiness and peace.

I wish I'd never went to fucking Mars.


	12. Chapter 12

Mark Watney  
Sol 387

I'm making the paper model for the Hab modifications right now. And for the first time in a very long time, I'm actually sort of having fun.

There's no life or death situation hanging on this model. If I get the Hab wrong I'm going to die, but the paper model itself is very low-stress. I mean, I don't even _have_ to do it at all. This pop-bedroom is a completely optional modification that I'm performing only for my own sanity. Yes, I'm risking life and limb over the convenience of a bedroom, but we all know I don't care about my life that much. I'm willing to risk it to not live 24.75/7 in the rover.

I'm doing this for my sanity, but if we're being honest here, my sanity is already pretty fucking compromised. But then again, I don't want to know what further damage living in a cramped rover for 100 sols would do to it.

This paper model is the lowest-stress thing I've done since getting to Mars. I'm using paper, tape and scissors to make a silly little paper model of a hexagonal structure. I'm even drawing windows on it where the Hab has windows, because I'm making a bit of a project out of creating a little Hab.

I lean back, and look at my handiwork.

For a moment, it's haunting. Seeing a model of what has been the last year of my life, on such tiny fragile paper. The Hab canvas is equally fragile in the winds of Mars. I'm equally fragile. The fact that one sharp movement would tear it is a metaphor for what my life has been reduced to.

I run a fingertip along the paper, and feel the graininess in it. Then again, the little guy hasn't ripped yet.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 389

I think of all the records I hold, "most EVAs done" is one of the less significant. My current records are longest time spent on mars, first to colonize mars, longest time survived alone on an alien world, most depressurizations survived, and I'm sure there's more. Most depressurizations survived is pretty awesome. I don't know, "most surface time ever" is pretty impressive too.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 390

I don't feel ready to leave.

Part of the reason I don't feel ready to go is because it's a full 51 sols before my scheduled departure date for Schiaparelli. Yes, the earlier I leave the better, because that leaves more time for fuck-ups, but I don't want to.

Part of the reason is also because the Hab is safety. Hell, the Hab looks so little like the scientific lab it once was that it almost feels like home. The floors are plastic over squishy dirt that I put there, there's a bathtub across from my bed, I've moved the tv and tables around my cot like a lazy college student, and everything has been rearranged to an organization pattern that I like. I left my friends' mementos up, but because their mementos remind me of them, so they're really my mementos now.

The Hab is my home. Fuck Mars, Mars isn't my home. But the Hab is, my tiny bubble of safety against the murderous rusty planet.

Which brings me to the last part of the reason I don't want to go; because the rover I rigged up is ghetto as fuck and it's going to kill me.

I mean seriously, I just lashed shit together with homemade rope and duct taped things to create pressure seals. It's a NASA nightmare. Everything in my training compels me to run screaming from the death-trap I just built myself.

The Hab is hardly safer when it's 250 Sols past it's expiration date, but at least JPL built it, not me. I can pretend that they're an organization of all-knowing gods and not the people responsible for the o-ring debacle.

Me? I know my limits. I know I wasn't trained for this shit. I know I'm not operating at 'peak mental capacity' anymore. Therefore, I know my handiwork can and probably will kill me.

But if I don't get to Schiaparelli by Sol 549, I'm going to die anyways. Either I get there and I die in the ascent, or I get don't get there and I die when I shove a lethal dose of morphine in my leg because at that point I would literally be utterly screwed beyond all hope.

It pleases me, the thought that within 6 months, this is going to be over one way or another. It's already been too damn long.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 395

It's been a week or two since I sabotaged the Hab to make a bedroom. The Hab canvas ceiling is all fucked up, but I've tested my seal already by spending last night in the rover.

Mars is punishing me for trying to defy him, and the sandstorm is hellish. I'm not sure how bad the sandstorm is actually, probably doesn't even qualify as a real sandstorm, but the sounds of particulates pinging against the Hab is hellish to me. I spent an hour or two just trying to sleep, but I don't want to take a sleeping pill and die in the night from depressurization. It's only 140-something Sols until the end, and I want to make it all the way there.

I run to get my EVA suit and put it on, unable to handle watching the Hab canvas distort under the pressure. This way, if it depressurizes, I'm going to have some sort of a defense.

You can't sleep in the EVA suit, though, and I don't want to waste the suit's filters and battery on what would be an all-night EVA. So I release the helmet pressure to equalize with the Hab every ten minutes, so that I can breathe without the filter, but if the Hab does explode my helmet is on and I can easily survive by just turning the suit on.

I'm huddling there on the floor for hours, huddling until my knees hurt, listening to my own harsh breath in the suit. My heart is beating out of my chest; there is nothing I can do to fight a sandstorm. If Mars decides that this is the night I die, there is nothing I can do to stop it. I've already been here over three hundred Sols, I've only got a handful of Sols left. So yeah, I'm finally attached to my life. I don't want to die so close to the ending. I'm so close to leaving in the Rover for Schiaparelli and Mars is going to kill me right before my victory.

I'm talking to myself, a string of words like "fuck Mars" and "I hate this planet," over and over, trying to drown out the sound of the storm.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 397

Another day turned useless because of how fucking crazy I am. Stayed inside all day, stared at a clock, watched the seconds change, felt the unstoppable passage of time. 152 Sols until the end. Watched the seconds pass away, expire, disappear forever.

You think I'm excited? I'm not excited. I'm dreading it. It's the day that I die. Yes, I hate this fucking existence and want to die, but the fact that it's out of my hands makes me dread it all the same.

—

Log Entry  
Sol 399

I'm not as good as I used to be. I mean, we all know that, but my very ability to use reason and think critically is starting to go.

Working out calculations is taking me three or four times longer than it used to be. Reading long paragraphs is becoming hard, and I find myself tracing over words three or four times before I can grasp what they actually mean. I'm having to trace entire paragraphs, actually, using my fingertip to lead myself through the words.

And another thing… I'm not sure about this one, but I think I'm losing time. I'm finding things moved that I definitely don't remember moving, or things being done that I don't remember doing, and there's literally no one else who could have done it. But I'm not sure. I could have just been tired when it happened.

I'm glad that the crew is coming back to rescue me, because I don't think I would have made it an entire four years until Ares IV. Not just the food, or the living conditions, but…

I can feel my mind fraying around the edges. I know I don't have much longer in me.

I just need 150 Sols, that's all. I can make it until then.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 414

That monochrome landscape is the only thing staring back out at me.

It's frozen, an iron ocean, the dunes waves stopped in time. It's an ocean, the wind causes waves, but the waves are sand and it takes years for one to crest. I would know, I've been here over a year, I can actually tell you how the dunes around the Hab have changed, how the large one across the valley has gotten noticeably closer. How I can feel them coming for me in my bones.

I imagine myself standing right where I am. I imagine myself sitting down, never getting back up again. I imagine the waves taking me.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 432

Feeling like I'm not in my body, that dead distant feeling, is the only thing that allows me to work through the pain as I shove all of the life support into the rovers.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 434

I'm laying in my bed, nothing keeping me alive but the whirring of the heaters. The life support is in the rover for the overnight test.

I won't even explode. I'll just close my eyes, and never wake up again.

It's exactly what I imagined, the countless times I considered killing myself in the beginning. And I'm not exactly rooting for life anymore, either. I'm not sure I even am still alive, or if I'm just some Ghost of Missions Past. Maybe this is all some sort of memory, and I've already died.

It's hard not to cry as I fall asleep. I took every moment in as I nestled on my Hab cot, and considered the walls of the Hab. Had I any way to send a message back I would have, but I didn't. It was hard not to cry because as I fell asleep for what could be the last time, all I could do was think of earth and hope everything was okay.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 436

So it's official. We are now calling Mars 'the enemy.' Mars is the God of War, I'm at War with Mars, it's all very poetic.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 444

I'm getting pretty good at this. Maybe when all this is over I could be a product tester for Mars rovers.

The idea doesn't repulse me, either. There's a significant chance that that's just because I've lost my sense for what life on Earth is like, but imagining it, a job driving around these little rovers in the fake-Mars they build in the warehouse sounds kind of fun.

I like the rover. It's got a bucket seat, a computer mounted square on the center of the dash, and is controlled with a joystick. That's a lot more fun than Earthling cars. Well, some cars these days drive themselves. But they still have steering wheels and all that, because the government decided people need them, and the drivers need licenses, just in case. Given my experience with the mandatory nature of redundancies, I think that that was a good decision.

Way back when cars were being invented, the US Government saw the need for rearview mirrors, and mandated that all cars have them. Good decision. Except that the language said "all cars must have rearview mirrors," not "all cars must have a mechanism to view the side of a car." That means when Tesla came along one hundred odd years later, Tesla had to put on rearview mirrors. Elon Musk invented cameras that can see around the side of a car without a blind spot, and could fit the display inside the cab, making cars much more narrow and eliminating the cost of having a rearview taken off of your car when you parallel park. But our cars still don't have that, because it takes the US Government twenty fucking years to change one law.

My point is, I prefer the rover. It's got great torque, too, something that Teslas do _not_ have.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 444

I take back what I said about the rover.

I'm already falling back into the haunting pattern of my pathfinder trip, and it's making me want to end my miserable existence all over again. I mean, more than the baseline level of wanting to die. So, you can tell it's pretty fucking horrible.

Or, you can look at it as "I'm already at my limit, so minor inconveniences become something that make me suicidal."

On the flip side, I recover easily now from suicidal feelings. After a bout of depression so bad I think I could reach my own and into my throat and tear my spinal cord out, it fades away and dissapears. Within fifteen minutes, I'm already back to the eerily dead emotional state that I spend most of my life in now.

Like anything else in life, it has a pattern, and now that I know that pattern I find them a lot easier to deal with.


	13. Chapter 13

Mark Watney  
Sol 449

The rover is packed. I'm ready to go. I could just climb in, and set off.

But before I step in, I turn back around to consider the Hab.

I've looted that poor Hab for everything it could give me, and in return it's kept me alive for a year and a half. It's like the Giving Tree.

Something warm and sentimental is stirring in me as I walked to the airlock to get in for the last time. I'm going in airlock 2 and leaving in airlock 3. Goodbye, airlock 2.

I felt the bouncy dirt floor beneath my feet on the plastic. Except it wasn't so bouncy anymore, because after a year and a half of being trodden on, even half a meter of dirt will compress into something resembling stone. I look around at my makeshift apartment, furniture and tv centered around my cot to enable my laziness.

I move through the motions to shut down the components slowly. Goodbye, kitchen equipment. Goodbye, water storage. Goodbye, structural software. Goodbye, humidity alarms.

I guess I did the shutdown as a homage to the mission Ares III could have been. A small piece of Sol 31 I never got to have.

Unbidden, images of the crew leapt into my mind. Superimposed on the Hab is the Hab as it should have been, soil samples and lab equipment everywhere. The crew is running around, double and triple checking that they have everything. I'm just standing in the center, imagining it all around me.

I shut down the systems, and I swear I can hear Lewis's voice in my ear, barking orders to check this and that. Why the fuck are you just standing there, Watney? Get to work.

But as everything wound down, it was too silent. I couldn't hear the flurry of activity anymore.

Now it was dead quiet. It was a creepy kind of quiet that's hard to describe. I've been away from the noises of the Hab before, but always in a rover or EVA suit, which have noisy machinery of their own.

But now there was nothing. I never realized how utterly silent Mars is. It's a desert world with utterly no atmosphere to convey sound. I could hear my own heartbeat.

It wasn't just silence, like a quiet room on Earth. It was silence like the vacuum of space, a silence that encroached on everything it encompassed, a silence much greater than a lack of noise. In the silence, the Hab suddenly seemed a lot more dead and cold, the husk of a probe sent here to die.

It was just as wrong as an empty MAV frame. And I could see that empty MAV struts out the window, looted and mangled. In the utter silence, it's like the campsite was already abandoned. There was nothing alive about this place except my own beating heart.

It was silence to match the way I've been feeling on the inside.

In that moment, something disconnected from me. I couldn't feel my body anymore, I couldn't hear my own beating heart anymore. Everything on this planet is dead. I'm dead too.

The horror of the moment jolted me and I stepped back, and the moment my foot made contact with the plastic and packed dirt I started again. My heartbeat was back, frantic. The Hab was my home, but now the Hab was a haunted place. I could feel the misery there like a fog in the air, choking me. It was my own misery, and I can't stand it.

I didn't rush out of the Hab, but instead donned my EVA suit slowly. It was too eerie to stay in and something in me told me I needed to _get away_ , but I also was holding on to every moment. It felt like I was experiencing something not human anymore, something far away. It was fucked up, and empty and cold and filled with despair, but it was _my Hab,_ and I just put it to sleep.

The winds gusted outside the window in utter silence, and for a moment I was experiencing the brutal and undisturbed nature of Mars outside the Hab. The utter silence and emptiness that lay just beyond my EVA suit. I was experiencing what I was ready to give myself up to on Sol 6, destruction.

That's why my eyes lingered on the Hab, even as I backed into the airlock. Goodbye, airlock 3.

My eyes lingered on the Hab, even as I walked away for the last time.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 454

There's something nostalgic about driving across Mars. The Hab is out of sight now, and I'm never going to see it again. I mean, that's _great_ , but it's also a little nostalgic. I have no little mementos to keep as a piece to take with me. That entire year-and-some of my life is just being abandoned on Mars, completely and utterly forgotten. No human will ever see it again in the lifetime of anyone alive. By the time another human sees it, it's going to be a museum piece. Or buried by dust. It's just weird to think that entire year of my life is going to turn to history and mythology.

I may be the first to be everywhere, but I'm also going to be the last. The marks I leave here are going to turn to dust and be forgotten. By the time someone is here again, there will be no evidence I was here.

I wonder if this is how the old explorers felt as they marched through the jungles and forests of the western world, finding things that they knew wouldn't be found again for hundreds of years. But they were found again, and now even the most remote areas of the planet are occupied by humanity. That's what I'm doing this for. That's why I don't regret going on Ares III (sometimes). So that one day people can live here, and we can continue to grow, and expand. Continue to live.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 458

It's amazing; this valley wasn't made by a river slowly carving it away. It was made by a mega-flood in a single day. It would have been a hell of a thing to see.

The gravity of the geological formation struck me. An unimaginable amount of water, an oceans worth, swept through this valley. And here I was, a tiny fragile ant driving through it. Humans are the greatest (and only) life force in this galaxy and potentially the entire local system, but the magnitude of this valley made me feel small and fragile. As the ancient polytheists would say, we are truly ants fighting a losing battle to stay alive.

I mean, think about it; in the strictest terms, my fight is not a battle to not die. My fight is just a battle to die somewhere else, a lot later, in more favorable circumstances. Death is still going to come for me, whether it's on Sol 549 or in a hospital in my seventies. I've given so much of myself, so much that there's not even anything left to give, just for the luxury of dying on a rock that isn't this rock. The nihilists would say that I should have just killed myself.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 464

I feel like I'm marching to my death. Rather, driving to my death. I know that the MAV is supposed to take me to the Hermes, but something in me feels like it's just going to go horribly wrong. Probably because so far during my stay on Mars, something horrible goes wrong at least 50% of the time. It is only due to the intervention of a well-meaning God that I have managed to survive thus far.

Probably has something to do with not letting myself hope. I can't let myself hope, can't let myself feel the utter disappointment while I'm strapped into a broken MAV, or rocketing through space, or wherever I am when it goes wrong for the last time.

Oh, what the hell, it's the last time. I won't be alive long enough to really appreciate the crushing sense of lost hope, because I'm going to vent nitrogen into my helmet and die peacefully if it comes to that. Not as great as morphine but hey, I make do with what I have. I relax, and allow myself hope.

The amount of hope I have, I discover, is pitiful. I'm just not that hopeful. I don't care. Something about the situation just feels so natural now. It's my lot in life; I work unbelievably hard for something that will never come. What else am I supposed to do?

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 475

I got up to the rim, and damn, it's a beautiful sight. From my high vantage point, I got a stunning panorama.

I wish I thought to take pictures. I've had cameras this whole time, but I used them to record NASA messages and nothing else. It just never occurred to me to take pictures of the scenery. I had no way of getting the pictures back home, right?

Except that the MAV has computers. Even if I can't bring home physical samples, I could have loaded that MAV's memory to the limit with pictures and data about Mars. That's how the data transfer works; the Hab backs up to the MAV and the MAV sends to the Hermes, to avoid a physical dependency on a flash drive which could get lost. True, my Hab didn't send anything to the Ares IV MAV, but I could have manually uploaded it with a flash drive. I had ones that went up to 1TB in memory laying around in droves in the Hab. But I didn't think of it. Because I'm stupid.

At least I've got my laptop. That's got existing scientific data, and I can upload that to the MAV. It's not photographs of Marth Crater, but it _is_ scientific data and the majority of my logs. I deleted some that were personal, so by and large it's a scientific account of my stay. Now that I know NASA scientists will be all over that (because the MAV can transmit to the Hermes whether or not I'm actually rescued), I wanted to save a bit of my dignity.

There was that time I almost committed suicide in front of the entire population of Earth, but oh well. If I die in the ascent I'll never have to field questions about it. And if I don't die, awkward questions are well fucking worth it. If anyone thinks I'm weak for it, we can just send them on a one way trip to Mars and see how _they_ like it.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 475

And I've learned to be suspicious of everything.

Anytime anything even slightly suspicious happens, it's usually heralding a fatal disaster. Like that time I noticed one small thing wrong, decided to take a reading almost on a whim, and realized that I turned the Hab into the hindenburg.

It just now occurs to me that _before_ I got communication with NASA is when all my really problematic problems were happening. After I got contact with NASA there was just a lot of waiting and fucking around. And now, when all the activity is happening again, I can't talk to them. It's as if whatever God rules Mars is conspiring to keep me away from them.

Maybe the polytheists were right after all. Maybe Mars is the God of War, and that's why the planet is always trying to kill us. I know that some theist somewhere is right, because some of the lucky breaks that kept me alive this whole time are just too preposterous to be all chance. I never thought the "improbability" argument from theists was valid; I always came back with "that's anthropomorphic" and "the world is contingently contingent." But this awful experience has changed my faith. I don't know how, I don't know why, but something up there is giving me just enough tools to stay alive. And we fucking know it's not NASA.

Then again, Iris exploded. But I can probably blame that on Sanders for cutting the inspection time. I could have starved for two weeks, I would have made it.

Then again, my departure date would be a clear 500 Sols later than it is at present, and I'd be _really_ around the cuckoo's nest by then.

Then _again_ , the crew wouldn't have had to risk their lives for me.

It could go back and forth forever. The point is Sanders is bad, there's a god out there rooting for me, and there's a god out there that's trying to kill me. I'm not sure I'm a _polytheist_ , but I'm definitely not an atheist anymore either.

I once heard that God can't be good or bad, because the creator would have had to have both good and bad within him to conceptualize and create both good and bad. So maybe it's the same God, batting me around like a cat's toy. Or maybe it isn't sentient and is just sort of a reflexive creative force. Who the hell am I to say I know anything about God? I'll ask Martinez when I get back. He's been trying to convert me for half a decade; he'll have a field day.

You know, I don't do a very good job of keeping my own thoughts on track anymore. Another sign of that pesky mental deterioration.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 480

The storm is probably circular. They usually are. But I could just be driving into an alcove. If that's the case, I'm just fucking dead, okay? There's only so much I can do.

I'm pounding the computer in agitation as I drive. I'm praying to the god that's on my side, that also might be the one trying to kill me, that it just not be a fucking alcove. That just wouldn't be _fair_. If this is some sort of survival test, you have to actually _give_ me everything I would theoretically need to survive. If there's not even a way for me to theoretically win, then it's not a test, it's just meaningless fucking taunting.

Sol 549. That's when they come for me. If I miss it, I'll spend the rest of my very short life here.

It'll be short, because I'll make it fucking short.

This entire experience is meaningless taunting. Fuck the God that put me here.

I put on Alone Again, because I'm so bitter I can taste it, hitting the key to play it with some measure of force.

But as if to knock me down  
Reality came around  
And without so much as a mere touch  
Cut me into little pieces  
Leaving me to doubt  
Talk about, God in His mercy

Oh, if he really does exist  
Why did he desert me  
In my hour of need

I truly am indeed  
Alone again, naturally

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 485

I'm definitely losing time.

I'm keeping an eye on the clock while driving, and sometimes I'll look at the clock and time will instantly pass. Not 'oh wow would you look at the time' instantly pass, but I mean literally the clock will change digits and my surroundings will suddenly be different. Scared the shit out of me for a minute, but then I remembered the pathetic circumstances of my life and decided not to care.

I suppose this is probably some kind of side-effect of solitary isolation or stress or whatever, but it's a little alarming to be losing hours at a time. What am I doing during those hours? Did I drive correctly? I always check the map when it happens, and if I was driving I drove in the correct direction. So it's not like I'm just completely checking out and driving in a straight line. Maybe I'm conscious, and I just lose the time like an accidentally deleted file.

I suppose if I stay functional, then it doesn't really matter. And besides… even if I weren't, what could I do?

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 487

Mars is really boring, so I decided to record myself. When I lose time, I can go back to the camera and look at myself. Well, I lost time, and I just did.

I just stared dead ahead, driving forward. Didn't check the map or navigate, just drove forward unseeingly. It didn't look like anyone was home. It was unsettling.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 492

But once I get to the MAV, I won't have to drive around anymore.

Holy shit. I just realized I actually believe I'll get to the MAV. See what I did there? I casually talked about what I'll do after I get to the MAV. Like it was nothing. No big deal. I'm just going to pop over to Schiaparelli and hang with the MAV there.

Nice.

Now, it's not the same thing as believing I'll live, but it's something.

I'm going to get to the MAV. I'm going to talk to someone again. This ordeal will finally fucking be over. I can feel myself losing it, and I want to get _out_.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 494

If I escape, I'm going to move closer to the crew. Then I'd be able to see them every day, I don't have to fucking miss them. They're my crew, they're my best friends, and it's insane that I live so far from them. Hell, I want to live with them, but we're adults now so they probably wouldn't appreciate that.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 497

Today's an Air Day and for once, I don't want it. I'm so close to Schiaparelli I can taste it.

I'd be surprised if my anticipation didn't show up on an air analysis. I'm vibrating with it; I want to see the MAV. I've spent 491 Sols just thinking about escaping this foreign fucking rock. Well, I've spent 491 Sols thinking about dying on this fucking rock, but with the obvious implication that being rescued would be better. I just didn't allow myself to hope.

But it's so close now that my body is working up hope all on it's own. It's dumping little jets of adrenaline into my blood, making me shake or jump randomly in the rover. I'm making little noises of excitement.

I haven't spoken in a while. Will I even be able to talk to them once I get in contact?

"Commander Lewis," I test experimentally. No, my voice is all scratchy and rough, and I was nervous so it came out as a little squeak.

I couldn't really talk to them if they weren't here. But I could talk to myself.

"You can kill yourself tomorrow," I said, repeating my catchphrase. My voice was strong, and apparently I was practiced at saying that sentence, since it fell easily from my lips.

I haven't needed it much in the last few months. That's been nice.


	14. Chapter 14

Mark Watney  
Sol 498

I got bounced around a lot, but I'm a well-honed machine in times of crisis. As soon as the rover toppled, I curled into a ball and cowered. That's the kind of action hero I am.

As soon as I felt the sideways pressure, I knew I was fucked. I'd been through this before.

There was the split second, there always was, after your fate is sealed but before the disaster happens. When the scene is laid out before you in crystal clarity, your last moments alive.

This time, I didn't use it for much. My last thoughts were "I wonder if Mars will actually properly fucking _kill_ me this time."

Then my world toppled over.

—

I came back to consciousness, groggy. The first thing I note is that I'm still not dead. There's a sort of grim victory in that fact. I know that I might be a dead man walking again, though, _again_ , because in all likelihood the life support is fucked.

I sit up, dizzy from unconsciousness. I'm physically unhurt, except for the concussion I probably have. Nothing is in my abdomen and nothing is hissing, so I'm already better off than the last two times I was thrown bodily across the surface of Mars. Should I count the hydrazine explosion? You know what, I do. There's no cut on my forehead or ringing in my ears, either. This has been the best bodily throwing I've been through.

Another grim victory. I have a few hours to assess how I'm going to die and make a feeble attempt to stop it. No suicide attempt this time, I'm just going to skip right past it. Why? Because what the fuck else am I going to do, that's why. I've made it 498 Sols, I'm not going to let this piece of shit planet get what it wants now.

—

The pressure is still in the trailer, the balloon is popped out.

A rover flip was a disaster scenario in my head, but at every turn it's actually turning out all right. Much like most NASA eventualities, it's a lot scarier on paper than it is in reality.

—

Jesus Christ. Sleeping in the sideways rover was one of the least pleasant experiences I've had in my entire time in the rust bowl.

My back hurts like a bitch. I admit, by this point I've already been reduced to taking a Vicodin almost every day just to keep the pain to don't-kill-Mark levels. The pain of starvation, the pain of a likely-permanent back injury, the pain of crushing suicidal depression, they all run together. But today, I had to take a full two, and while that might make me a little stoned, I was in so much pain I wouldn't really be able to work if I weren't.

After a morning potato and Vicodin, I was feeling much better.

—

While I was working on righting the rover, I talked to myself.

I dug up my longest cable. It's the same one that powered the drill that destroyed _Pathfinder_. I call it my "lucky cable."

I think my bitterness is really beginning to get to me.

There's no one around to appreciate my jokes but me. Naming it my "lucky cable" is just for the benefit of this stupid, awful planet, as if it can actually hear me. Maybe it can. I don't give a fuck.

Jesus, I wasn't nearly this acerbic a year and a half ago.

"Yeah, dude, because a year and a half ago you were Mark Watney," I said to myself. "But look!" My voice is still acerbic. "You've adjusted to life as the only man on Mars."

I finish my sentence with a perverse smile. It makes my face sore. Jeez, I haven't moved my facial muscles in a while, the strain from that actually hurt.

If adjusting means talking to myself, hearing imaginary noises and responding to everything with suicide and sarcasm, and creepy amnesiac staring, then I'm not really sure it can be considered adjusting.

—

Mars is not Earth. It doesn't have a thick atmosphere to bend light and carry particles that reflect light around corners. It's damn near a vacuum here. Once the sun isn't visible, I'm in the dark.

It's the little things like this that really remind me that Mars is not Earth.

Ten or twenty meters away, I can see beautiful and bright sunlight illuminating the rusty surface of this dead planet. But just over here, it's a blackness so complete that I can't see the ground in front of me. It's as if the entire world ends where the sunlight does, blacked out by expo marker.

I have to feel my way back to the rover in this complete darkness, all the while staring at the bright light. I'm tempted to go reach my hand into it just to see my hand floating in space not attached to anything, but that would be a frivolous use of my time. That doesn't bother me so much, actually. But if I did that I might have some sort of existential thought, and it's when I start having existential thoughts that I begin to check out of my own body or lose hours of time, and I don't want to deal with that.

No, I just want to get to the rover and lay down.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 500

Then I sat for a moment, dumbstruck that my plan had actually worked.

Nothing ever breaks my way on this damn planet. Okay, that's a lie. Things only break my way on this planet when it's actually the line between life and death. And only after I blow myself up a few times, destroy an airlock, or my communications, or something that is permanently critical to my situation.

Also my back is literally on fire from that labor. I took a Vicodin before it started, but the pain is breaking through it. I need another. I know, it'll make me a little dumber, but one, I've got a good tolerance for it now, two, between the losing place while reading and being unable to do math I'm already pretty dumb, and three, I've got nothing on the schedule except for eating a potato, and I'm going to need to be a little high if I'm going to make it through eating another fucking potato.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 502

Oh my god, I forgot how good real food tastes.

In my head, I know it's pathetic that I consider this real food. But it is. This is gourmet cooking on Mars, and I've clearly lost my physical memory of anything that is not Mars. I have intellectual memories of not-Mars, but the only feelings I can have anymore are feelings about this featureless hellscape.

I've been reduced to the sum of what's happened to me.

For the first time, I wonder if I even want to escape.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 504

Holy shit, this is awesome! Holy shit! Holy shit!

I'm so incredibly glad to see that MAV, standing in the distance. It's a different crater and a different part of Mars, but all MAV's look the same, apparently.

Rescue hasn't really been real, all this time. It's been the remote possibility I've been working for all this time, but the empty MAV struts always stood in the distance, so wrong yet undeniable. They left without me and took the rocket with them, and that means I am stuck here on this planet, left me with nothing but empty landing struts to stare at.

Seeing that iron base with an actual spaceship on it gives me an unbelievable sense of hope. This MAV base isn't empty, there is a perfectly serviceable MAV right on it, ready for me to use. It's a way off this god forsaken wasteland.

Suddenly, Mars isn't a hellish death trap. I can practically see the arcing path it will take upon liftoff, with me inside it. I can't see past the atmosphere but I look into the sky like it's a doorway.

A hot and uncomfortable feeling swells my whole chest; I know it's hope but I must not be used to it because instead of good, I just feel extremely uncomfortable in my spacesuit, pressing against my chest like a panic attack.

God, it's too much, and I'd like to have a fucking freakout in the rover but instead I just breathe harshly and keep driving.

Okay calm. Calm.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 504

I'm completely unashamedly crying as I exit the rover and practically run at the MAV, falling into the dirt and scrambling toward it like it's the goalpost of the national championship.

I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and _damn_ is my throat scratchy, I want some water but I don't care because I'VE MADE IT HOLY SHIT I'VE MADE IT.

To save my throat I decide to leap up in the 0.4g, and the fact that I get some impressive height makes me feel amazing. But lifting 50kg spacesuits into the air is hard, so I drop to a knee partially in exhaustion, still waving my arms like a madman.

I'm still screaming. I can't feel anything in my body, my ears are actually beginning to ring because the noise bounces off the glass of my helmet. I run at the landing strut again and I hug it when I reach it, feeling the connectors holding the MAV upright. It's fucking here!

I'm still jumping as I drop the ladder down, screaming my lungs out. I haven't processed anything yet, not really, the emotions vented directly into my screaming.

It's not until I'm in the MAV that I really process it. I collapse into one of the lower level seating racks, still wearing my EVA suit because it has no life support yet.

This is a pristine, new spaceship. It has six flight suits, fitted for the members of Ares IV. Sorry I'm going to have to pilfer one. And your entire MAV. Sorry not sorry.

I climb up into the control seat, and the sight of the flight room makes me cry. I sit down and cry, just abjectly cry, with my mouth hanging open and doubling over, even harder than when I got pathfinder connected. Because this is what I was supposed to see on Sol 6, the flight control room of a MAV that is going to take me far fucking away from this planet. This is what I thought I was never going to get to see.

I know that they're going to have to gut it to get me into orbit, but I don't care. Because I'm going into orbit. Right now I'm fucking excited about the prospect of dying in orbit, because then I'm not dying on this dusty barren rock. I don't want to give this planet the _fucking satisfaction_.

I'm still crying as I turn all the systems. The communication won't work quite yet, but I'm going to transfer life support so I can get some real shit done in here. So I'm not talking to NASA yet, but everything is booting up and doing it's checks.

I'm so excited to talk to NASA that I'm already climbing out again, even though my muscles are burning and I can barely catch my breath. I need that life support in here now, I want to launch into orbit _now_.

Suddenly I feel all the impatience I haven't been allowing myself to feel. I'm escaping Sol 549. Whatever happens, I am loading my sorry ass into this MAV and flinging myself into the upper martian atmosphere.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 504

I'm angry with their plan, but I'm not that angry.

I understand that this is just how it is. It needed to lose a lot of weight. I knew this was going to happen before I even set foot on. And yeah, it's fucking retarded, but everything that has happened on this entire fucked up mission has been fucking retarded. I'm accusing them of sending me into space in a ragtop, when I'm currently cooling nitrogen for my atmospheric regulator by running the hose through a patch of _canvas_ in a _cutout_.

I just chose - I didn't have to, I just chose - to vandalize the Hab in order to make myself a bedroom for the trip. That increased my chances of explosion by at least 2%, both before I left and during the trip, because safety resin is really not something I should use as a daily fix for a pressure vessel, but I did it anyway. I exponentially increased my chances of death over the indignity of sleeping in the rover. I'm really in no position to criticize.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 504

So with the crops, I accused them of all being a bunch of agitated pigeons.

I must have been on my own for a long time, because this is way worse.

I'm having to control an urge to send them an 'unkind' message almost with every response. The transmission time is 14 minutes, I do not have time to be fucking around insulting people, and yet every fucking _safety first_ message they send me just grates on my nerves. You're the ones who want to send me to space in a convertible, you don't have the high ground on safety anymore. Better yet, you're the ones who _left me here in the first place_.

But they're also the ones saving my sorry ass, so I should be nicer. And it's not like they left me here on purpose.

My mind flashes back to all those people on Houston. I want to be nice to them.

Don't worry guys, I'm coming.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 510

I wonder what day it is on Earth right now. I haven't calculated days, or the earth-date, in a long while. After the first holiday it was too fucking depressing.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 515

You know, I'm still hearing the murmuring around the corner, still checking out for long periods of time, still kind of losing it running around crying and hurting myself. It's just getting worse and worse and worse. If by the grace of an alien god I don't die during the ascent, will it still happen on the Hermes? Is this who I am now?

This is the second time I wonder if living is worth it, at all.


	15. Chapter 15

Mark Watney  
Sol 529

Nobody told me to expect a message from Johanssen.

[19:22] JOHANSSEN: Hello, Mark.

It blinked on my screen and made a pinging noise, and it's lucky I was in the rover, because I've been spending most of my time mainlining Vicodin and trying to finish the ghetto MAV, pair to my ghetto rover.

It took a minute to hit me.

[19:23] MAV: Johanssen? Holy crap! They're finally letting you talk to me directly?

I was waiting less than a minute before I got my response.

[19:24] JOHANSSEN: Yes, NASA gave the OK for direct communication an hour ago. We're only 35 light-seconds apart, so we can talk in near-real time. I just set up the system and am testing it out.

That means they've been quite close for quite some time. I've been here 20 days, and we're just talking now?

[19:24] MAV: What took them so long to let us talk?

[19:25] JOHANSSEN: The psych team was worried about personality conflicts.

Fucking psych team and fucking NASA. They're the ones I'm about to have a personality conflict with.

"Mark, you're just bitter about Mars. Don't take it out of Venkat and NASA administration."

Because that's who I'm really mad at, here. Houston, JPL, they're the people that are fighting tooth and nail for me to get home. It's NASA administration who keeps doing the wacky shit that is annoying me way more than it should.

[19:25] MAV: Why? Just 'cause you guys abandoned me on a godforsaken planet with no chance of survival?

I thought the joke would be funny in how it's obviously not true.

[19:26] JOHANSSEN: Funny. Don't make that kind of joke with Lewis.

Yeah, you don't need to tell me.

[19:27] MAV: Roger. So uh…

It hits me. I'm really talking to Johanssen, right now. She's sitting at the console right now, waiting for my reply just a few hundred thousand miles away.

My eyes go watery again, because apparently a year and a half on Mars turned me into a weepy little girl.

…thanks for coming back to get me.

What a fucking inadequate set of words.

[19:27] JOHANSSEN: It's the least we could do. How is the MAV retrofit going?

No, it's not the least. You weren't obligated to come save me. You all chose to because you're crazy, reckless astronauts.

[19:28] MAV: So far, so good. NASA put a lot of thought into the procedures. They work. That's not to say they're easy. I spent the last 3 days removing Hull panel 19 and the front window. Even in Mars-g they're heavy motherfuckers.

[19:29] JOHANSSEN: When we pick you up I will make wild, passionate love to you. Prepare your body.

Martinez.

[19:29] JOHANSSEN: I didn't type that! That was Martinez! I stepped away from the console for like 10 seconds!

Knew it.

[19:29] MAV: I've really missed you guys.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 549

I'm leaving forty-one potatoes behind. That's how close I came to starvation.

The thought rattles me to the core, staring at my 41 potatoes. It feels like I narrowly avoided a speeding train. I ate a lot of half rations, even accidentally skipped meals. If I didn't do that, I would have ran out of food.

I would have eaten a few extra today (because I haven't felt full since Sol 6), but I don't want any food in my stomach while I'm pulling 12gs. I've just been eating 3/4 rations since I got to the MAV.

I'm sentimental. I'm leaving rock samples here for whoever is here next (Ares IV, probably, in like a decade) to come pick up. I'm going to build another shed out of rocks, so that sandstorms don't cause the great potato migration. I'm keenly aware of how botanists will consider those potatoes invaluable science, so I want to make sure they're at least here to be poked and prodded by whoever cares.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 549

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shitting myself.

It's not really death that I'm afraid of. Actually, it's not at all death that I'm afraid of, as you know, person in my head that I talk to. I'm an astronaut. No, what's more intimidating is the idea of floating around in space until I run out of air. In a competition to think of the worst ways anyone could die, that one is top-shelf.

But fuck, I don't want to die on this wasteland more.

I face the very real possibility I'll die today. Can't say that I like it.

I don't. You know what? I spent 549 god-forsaken Sols on a planet that is continuously doing everything it can to make sure that I die. I don't want to die, I want to escape just to fucking do it. I've worked so hard for this goal, and I hate the fact that whether or not it will be seen through is now wholly and totally out of my control.

I still can't quite believe that this is really it. I'm really leaving.

There are no good things on Mars. I know that there's a possibility I'll get saved, and yesterday, I was fucking excited about it. But today I just feel empty, like it's not salvation I'm headed to. Like there's going to be some other disaster, there always is, and my life will be cut short. Like one big, interplanetary, cosmic, fuck you.

Sol 6 pops into my mind, unbidden. Cresting the hill, seeing the empty MAV.

Considering kneeling into the dirt and just _dying_.

That's what all this has been about all along. I didn't want sink into the fucking dust and just… die.

It's easier to say this after it's happened, I know, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I drug myself into the Hab. I'm glad at every chance, I convinced myself to Live Another Sol. I'm glad I've fought as hard as I can to survive. Even if I die today, _that means something_. I'll die proud of myself, knowing I did everything that I could. And at the end of the day, that's all anyone can do.

This realization gives me peace.

I have no more jobs to do, and no more nature to defeat. I've had my last Martian potato. I slept in the rover for the last time. I've left my last footprints in the dusty red sand.

I've spent most of this trip contemplating the futile nature of human life. But now that I've tried my hardest and stand before the end, I know that it's worth it just on the face of it. Not for the rewards, or the glory, but the knowledge that you came into life and lived it the very best that you could. When it's finally time to greet death, there is nothing except your accounting of the choices you've made. And the choices I made were the best.

For a fourth (or fifth or sixth) time, I find myself greeting death. But this time, it isn't me grasping at straws,desperately trying to just end my suffering. There's no choking depression gripping my throat, no doom descending upon me.

Like a curtain lifted, my mind is finally clear. No matter what happens today, I'm going home. For the first time since Sol 6, I'm happy.

I raise my head to consider the billowing martian sand dunes, the tornadoes in the distance. It's beautiful and alien again, the way it was on Sol 6 when the morphine was pressed against my leg. This time, I'm not suffocating from my abject despair. I think this is what life, what death, is supposed to be like. You live life to the fullest every second you can, but when it's time to go, you're ready.

For my part, I just sit back and drink in the vast horizons. I should have appreciated it more. 549 sols I'm here, and every single memory of Mars is tinted red with anger, a personal cock fight against the planet. It completely tarnishes the beauty. But in this moment, I'm not fighting anymore, and this planet isn't fighting me, and I can finally see the majesty in it's towering mountains.

Cliche as it sounds, maybe the planet was never fighting me. My struggle was the struggle of every human, fighting a losing fight against the clock, against a curtain that is destined to fall, against eyes that are doomed to close forever.

I'm dimly aware that if I survive, this peace won't last. The clarity of the truth is giving me a brief respite, but should I walk onto the Hermes ever again, nothing will ever be the same. The struggle against Mars is over, but there are more fights for me that lay ahead, not the least of which will be a fight against my failing sanity. Am I ready to keep fighting?

As I search my soul, I find (to my utter fucking disbelief) that I am. Because it isn't a desperate fight, not anymore. There is no fight. I know the future is going to be hard, but it won't be a _fight_. I won't have to suffer anymore.

Time doesn't march against us, it marches with us, carrying us through the journey. Life doesn't work against us, it works with us, giving us the tools we need. Mars was a constant race against the clock (or I would starve), but all this time it was also carrying me towards my rescue. Mars was a constant fight against death, but all lives come to an end.

My story is going to mean a lot to the world, for varying reasons. It represents humanity banding together, it's everyone on the planet preserving life, it's honoring the spirit of the explorer, e.t.c. But all of those are missing the point. The point is that life's not about avoiding death, or beating back time. It's about making your life what it's meant to be. This story is about how life is fundamentally about _not giving up_.

And this is how this story ends. Turns out my story wasn't about beating starvation, or racing the clock, or just letting it all fucking end. The story of Mark Watney is the story of a man who was stranded on Mars, and instead of giving up he did _everything he could_ to make it back to Earth, because that's the point. You do everything you can.

I'd tell everyone that I'm at peace, but I'm already suited up and waiting for launch. I can't type, and they're too busy to talk. It's a shame, because now if I explode in orbit they're going to think it's a tragic story when it's not.

I just shrug. That's how it works, isn't it? On your deathbed you finally realize what the point of life is, only to die before you can let anyone know. Would be kind of rude of me to spoil the secret.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 549

Suddenly, the voices of my crew are in my ears, talking mission instructions. It centers me on the here and now, the mission proceedings going on around me. I feel like a visitor from another world, listening in on their hustle and bustle. They're all frantic, but I'm at peace, just waiting for the train home.

"Fuel Pressure green," Johanssen's voice says. "Engine alignment perfect. Communications 5 by 5. We are ready for preflight checklist, Commander."

My eyes water. Her voice is the most beautiful thing I've heard in a thousand lifetimes, and I think to myself that this must be what the Christians mean when they say God loves everyone.

Hearing her talk changed something fundamental in me. In that instant, I wasn't a ghost on Mars anymore. Suddenly I realized that I'm alive, and alone, and _they came back for me_.

"Copy," came Lewis's voice. "CAPCOM."

It takes all I have not to sob into my helmet. I've done that multiple times now, and it's a negative experience every time. There's tears, and snot, and you can't wipe your face, and the tears pool at the neck…

"Go," Johanssen responded.

It doesn't work. I'm crying in my helmet, but it's all right. I'm alive.

"Guidance."

"Go," Johanssen said again.

It's all going to be okay.

"Remote Command."

"Go," said Martinez.

"Pilot."

It takes a split second for me to register that someone is talking _to me_. To me!

"Go," I say, voice cracking and wobbling.

"Telemetry," Lewis's voice said over the speakers.

"Go," Johanssen responded.

"Recovery," she continued.

"Go," said Beck from the airlock.

"Secondary Recovery."

"Go," said Vogel from beside Beck.

This is an excellent closing to Mars; I get to hear everyone's voices one more time. I'm memorizing every tone, every note, as if I'm about to get stranded on Mars again. As if I'll never hear it again.

"Mission control, this is Hermes Actual," Lewis reported. "We are go for launch and will proceed on schedule. We are T minus four minutes, 10 seconds to launch... mark."

Only four fucking minutes until I get off of Mars. I look out at the vast horizons again, I don't peel my eyes away. This is the last of Mars I'll ever see, and just like with the Hab, I'm getting sentimental, both horrified by the brutal emptiness of this planet and attached to it because it's where I went through everything.

It's not trying to kill me anymore, I'm not trying to kill it anymore. I won. I'm at peace.

"About four minutes, Mark," Lewis said into her mic. "How you doing down there?"

"Eager to get up there, Commander," I respond, in the most controlled voice I can manage.

"We're going to make that happen," Lewis said. "Remember, you'l be puling some pretty heavy G's. It's ok to pass out. You're in Martinez's hands."

Oh my god, it's so good to hear the voices of my friends. I can finally be Mark _Watney_ again. "Tell that asshole no barrel-rolls."

"Copy that, MAV," Lewis said.

I swear, I can detect laughter in her tone.

A couple minutes later, I hear Lewis's voice again.

"About 5 seconds, Watney," Lewis said to her headset. "Hang on."

"See you in a few, Commander," I find the strength to answer, my voice audibly wobbling.

The engine is rumbling, but nothing is happening.

"Hmm," I say to myself. "I wonder how much longer -"

When the engines start, my heart leaps into my throat as the entire weight of 12.0g crushes me. I tear into the atmosphere, and leave Mars behind forever.

—

Mark Watney  
Sol 549

Blissful unconsciousness became foggy awareness which transitioned into painful reality.

Well, if I can feel my ribs trying to tear me a new one from the inside out, then I guess I'm still alive. Funny, that time I didn't have my split-second of frozen time. Probably was too confused to take note of it. 12gs would do that to someone.

I see Mars out of the corner of my vision, and I appreciate the fact that I'm one of only eighteen people to see this view. And I can think of only one appropriate way to send it off.

"Fuck you," I direct at the dusty read planet. Perhaps the god of war will hear me, and then it won't feel like I'm cursing out an inanimate object.

Again, I feel like I'm pinching scissors inside my body when I reach for my arm radio. But a little pain hasn't stopped me before and it won't stop me now. "MAV to Hermes."

"Watney!?" Lewis's voice was slightly unsteady, which is more emotional then I've ever heard her.

 _Oh my God, it's a human voice_. Tears threaten to fall from my eyes again, so I try and blink them away.

"Affirmative. That you, Commander?" is my far more unsteady reply.

"Affirmative. What's your status?" All business, no crying until I'm on the Hermes. Pull it together.

"I'm on a ship with no control panel. That's as much as I can tell you."

"How do you feel?"

Keep it business. "My chest hurts. I think I broke a rib. How are you?"

"We're working on getting you," Lewis said. "There was a complication in the launch."

"Yeah," I look up at the hole in my ship. _A complication_. "The canvas didn't hold. I think it ripped early in the ascent."

"That's consistent with what we saw during the launch."

Keep it business. "How bad is it, Commander?"

"We were able to correct the intercept range with Hermes's attitude thrusters. But there's a problem with the intercept velocity."

"How big a problem."

"42 meters a second," Lewis's voice says.

There's no fucking way they can intercept that.

I fight to get a noise out of my mouth that isn't just me screaming. "Well shit."

I'm not fighting screaming because I have to die, I'm fighting screaming because I'm so fucking close to them. I'm close enough to have real-time conversation, and yet it isn't close enough for them to save me. It's the most indignant death I've faced so far, like having a treat waved in my face but just out of my reach. It's all the more indignant because there's nothing I can fucking do.

I moan in pain, and bang my head against the back of the chair in frustration.

No, Watney, work the problem, you're not dead yet.

 _You can always die_ … I can't say tomorrow, so let's just say _later_.

I'm going to die floating through space either way, might as well give it my all.

"Hey," My mouth is dry. I'm definitely going to die from this stunt. "I've got an idea."

"Of course you do," Lewis said. "What do you got?"

"I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I'd be able to direct it pretty easily."

"How does he come up with this shit?" Martinez interjected. I've been asking myself that for a while now, but I think the answer is something like 'the survival instinct' or 'it really doesn't matter if I die, because I'm gonna die anyways.'

"Hmm," Lewis said. "Could you get 42 meters per second that way?"

"No idea," I said. Because it doesn't really matter. It's the only plan we have.

"I can't see you having any control if you did that," Lewis said. "You'd be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control."

"I admit, it's fatally dangerous. But consider this: I'd get to fly around like Iron Man."

And if I don't, it's just fatal.

"We'll keep working on ideas," Lewis said instead.

"Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man."

The radio falls dead, presumably so they can work on something else. My mouth is dry, my insides are searing, and I'm beginning to pant against my spacesuit, mostly from the suffocation my crushed chest is causing. The EVA suit is bigger than a flight suit, and 50kgs in 12gs was not fun. NASA got a little antsy about a flight suit in a ragtop, and made me wear the EVA suit.

The minutes are dragging on, with no reply from them. Presumably because they realize we're fucked. If they come back and don't have a plan, I am _going_ to Iron Man my way to them, and I don't give a fuck what they think. At least I'll die Iron Man.

I picture that dusty hill, gazing at the MAV, already feeling my legs weaken to kneel into the sand. At least I won't die there.

It's taking everything in me not to radio them just to make sure they're still there. I want to talk to them as much as I can before I suffocate in space. I haven't talked to anyone in over a year, I at least want to talk to them before the end. But they're trying their hardest to save me, just like Houston, so I wait.

My wait is finally over when Lewis says "Watney, how you doing?"

"Fine so far, Commander," I lie through my teeth. "You mentioned a plan?"

"Affirmative," she said. "We're going to vent atmosphere to get thrust."

That also sounded fatally dangerous. "How?"

"We're going to blow a hole in the VAL."

I was right; that's extremely fatally dangerous. "What!? How!?"

"Vogel's making a bomb."

I'm really containing the urge to yell. "I knew that guy was a mad scientist! I think we should just go with my Iron Man idea." Mostly because the only person who will die with my idea is me, but setting off a _bomb_ in the _Hermes_ will not only kill me, but everyone else too. We all knew I was gonna die, but there is absolutely no fucking reason they need to die too.

"That's too risky and you know it," she replied. What a load of shit, _my_ plan being too risky.

"Thing is," I say. I can't just out-and-out tell my commander she's full of shit, she's the commander. "I'm selfish. I want the memorials back home to be just for me. I don't want the rest of you losers in them. I can't let you guys blow the VAL."

"Oh," Lewis said. "Well if you won't let us then- wait... wait a minute... I'm looking at my shoulder patch and it turns out I'm the Commander. Sit tight. We're coming to get you."

I fight the urge to groan. "Smart-ass," I bite instead. But she's right; there is nothing I can do to stop them. They are already moving on this plan of theirs, so it would be best for me to just stay here and wait for this disaster to play itself out.

I'm having a new kind of anxiety, one I haven't felt in a long time; true fear. I consigned myself to my fate, but I never accepted their death. Fuck, I don't want them to die. I get it, my story is about not giving up and I've done all I could and whatever, I'm fine with that. But my crew dying? That was never a part of this fucking deal.

Please, _please_ be careful. Don't die with me.

It's twenty heart-wrenching minutes they leave me alone, waiting to find out whether or not they died. Did they die? They would hardly be able to respond if they did. I suppose if it goes another ten minutes without a response, I'll unhook myself from the chair and try and get a look at the Hermes.

But in a hot minute, I hear Lewis. "Watney, it worked. Beck's on his way."

"Score!" I respond. I thump my head back in the chair, panting. They're not all dead, they haven't died with me.

We're all alive. They're coming to get me.

I'm not going to cry until Beck is actually here.

I will not cry until Beck is here.

I will not cry until Beck is here.

It's another few minutes I am repeating that to myself.

I will not cry until Beck is here.

I will not cry until Beck is here.

"I have visual!" Beck's voice rang in the comm. "I can see the MAV! Jesus, Mark, what did you do to that thing?"

"You should see what I did to the rover," I radio back, pretending the shaking in my voice is laughter.

"Copy. 5.2 meters per second," came Johanssen's voice. That must be Beck's relative velocity.

"Hey Beck," I say, leaning over my seat. "The front's wide open. I'll get up there and be ready to grab at you."

"Negative," interrupted Lewis. "No untethered movement. Stay strapped to your chair until you're latched to Beck."

"Copy," I say, leaning back in the chair. I think that's stupid, but I am _not_ going to fuck this up.

Beck's not here yet.

I will not cry until Beck is here.

"3.1 meters per second," Johanssen reported.

"Going to coast for a bit," Beck said in my helmet. "Gotta catch up before I slow it down." Oh my God, Beck is so close I could probably see him. But I try to turn my head to look out the windows, and find that I can't. Where is he?

I will not cry until Beck is here.

"11 meters to target," Johanssen said. Rescue is 11 _fucking_ _meters_ away.

"Copy," Beck says.

"6 meters," Johanssen said.

 _6 fucking meters to rescue._

 _It's actually fucking happening._

 _I will not cry until Beck is here._

"Aaaaand, counter-thrusting. Velocity?" He asked.

"1.1 meters per second," Johanssen said.

"Good enough. I'm drifting toward it. I think I can get my hand on some of the torn canvas... Contact! Firm contact!"

I make sure the radio is off as a sob tears it's way out of me. I can see the pressure his hand is creating on the torn tether; he is right around the corner. _It's actually fucking happening._

"Dr. Beck," Vogel said. "We have past closest approach point and you are now getting further away. You have 169 meters of tether left. Enough for 14 seconds."

"Copy," Beck said.

Beck's head comes around the corner, and his bright eyes are far more beautiful than any of Mars' vast horizons.

I sob again, and then I wince as the bending motion causes my probably-broken ribs to tear into my sides.

"Visual on Watney!" He says, making a beeline for me.

"Visual on Beck!" I pant.

"How ya doin', man?" Beck says as he maneuvers towards me.

"I... I just..." I'm ten seconds away from real sobbing, like I-can't-talk-sobbing. My throat feels like it's tearing, tearing about as bad as my ribs are inside of me. "Give me a minute. You're the first person I've seen in 18 months."

"We don't have a minute," Beck said, kicking off the wall. "We've got 11 seconds before we run out of tether."

I turn off the radio so I can sob my eyes out like a baby. It turns out to be a good thing, too, because Beck bounces into me and instead the impact jarrs my shattered ribs, tearing a scream out of my already searing throat. I'm sure a sobbing, screaming man is what he signed up for.

"Contact with Watney!" Beck said, either oblivious or ignoring me.

"8 seconds, Dr. Beck," Vogel radioed.

"Copy," Beck says, hastily latching himself to me with a clip. "Connected," he said.

I lean over and release the restraints on my chair, ignoring the protest of my ribs. I hit the radio button just to say "Restraints off."

"We're outa' here," Beck said, kicking off the chair toward the opening.

Oh Christ, my ribs hurt, but the pressure is distributed evenly across my entire space suit so it doesn't hurt _too_ badly as Beck pulls me towards the Hermes. I'm also crying like a baby because the door of the Hermes is right there, Beck is right next to me and I can see Vogel standing in the airlock, german flag on his pristine flight suit.

I'm crying-screaming, actually, because seeing my friends all waiting for me is just too fucking much.

Seeing the Hermes reminds me of life on the ship, life outside of Mars. Suddenly, I realize how fucked everything is.

I'm starving half to death in a body so frail my hips jut out at my sides and my ribs are broken, and I'm so desperately lonely that the sight of my friends is causing me to scream and cry at quite the decibel. My body is covered in bruises because it can't recover, and I need Vicodin just to get through the day anymore. I talk to myself, can't think straight enough to do math, and hear things that aren't there. It's all on display, too, right where everyone can tell.

Our helmets are reflective, so there's a chance they haven't really seen my state. But they're not completely reflective, and all eyes are on me, so I wouldn't bet on it.

"We're out," Beck reported.

"5 seconds," Vogel said.

"Relative velocity to Hermes: 12 meters per second," Johanssen said.

"Thrusting… That's it for the fuel," Beck said. "Velocity?"

"5 meters per second," Johanssen replied.

"Standby," Vogel said.

There are a few tense empty seconds, punctuated only by my own crying. My heart feels like it's exploding in my chest, and it's uncomfortable but I don't care because the door for the Hermes is _right there, right in front of me._

"Velocity 0!" Johanssen reported excitedly.

"Reel 'em in, Vogel," Lewis said.

"Copy," Vogel said

Vogel slowed our entry into the airlock, and I grasp around for a bar. I make contact with it to slow myself, and as I close my hands around the bar I think _I'm touching the Hermes. I'm saved._

My crying changes, the sobs being torn from my throat now joyous, my face hurting from the exertion. Turns out talking to yourself doesn't really preserve the strength of your facial muscles against several minutes of continuous screaming.

"Aboard!" Beck said.

"Airlock 2 outer door closed," Vogel said.

"Yes!" Martinez's voice is loud in my ear, too loud, but I don't care, it's beautiful too.

"Copy," Lewis said.

I double over, now ignoring my screaming ribs, because I'm yelling, cheering into my own suit. Vogel and Beck are staring at me I think, but I just don't give a single shit. "I escaped! I can't believe it! I lived! Fuck you Mars! I'm not dying on that shitty planet! I escaped! Fuck you!"

All they see is me holding a bar, bending over, probably wondering what the hell is going on inside that suit.

Lewis's voice echoed in my head like a dream. "Houston, this is Hermes Actual. Six crew safely aboard."

My yelling stops, for just a moment, and I feel the hot tears on my face.

We did it. Everyone at Houston, at JPL, at NASA, all my friends and family, my crew, we did it. This isn't just my victory, this is everyone's victory.

I turn my radio back on. "Guys. We did it."

Their cheering in my helmet is all I need.


End file.
